Posts by Sunchild

2

To Sunchild re: secular spirituality message

by Introspection in

jw
friends

hi rochelle,.

i had said in a previous message:.

it doesn't mean that sitting around doing nothing or doing anything is as spiritual as it gets.. .

Sunchild

Maybe it's just because I haven't eaten in about seven hours and my mind is still half on the pizza that's warming in the oven, but I really don't think I see your point. Like I already told you, my own worldview doesn't coincide 100% with the Secular Spirituality site, and more than that, I also said tht I was just presenting options. And I never made any claim that the site's owner was the only person in the world who held such views. If s/he were, s/he wouldn't have any books or sites to recommend.

I really don't get why you're so concerened with the external trappings of spiritual practices. I enjoy rituals myself, and apparently, the site's author thinks they're a good idea, too. But at the same time, I know that not everyone enjoys the kinds of rituals I do, and that not everyone feels drawn to ritual at all.

You see to me I just hear the message "I don't believe in God anymore but I'm still a spiritual person", and my reaction is "Okay. And..?"

If you don't get it, I probably can't explain it to you, and it's more than likely not something that's for you. As I said once before, spirituality is a very personal, individual thing; it doesn't mean the same thing to all people. Just because you can't relate to it personally doesn't mean that it's impossible or invalid.

You might wonder what all this has to do with the ideas posed at the secular spirituality website, well as the author of those articles says, it is a faith based on reason. What appears reasonable varies with individuals, and you may be a smart person but be biased in some way, or even if you're unbiased in what you choose as part of your belief/spiritual practice you may not have all the facts.

I'm not an atheist, so I definitely wasn't looking for a way to "validate" spiritual atheism. I just thought this site presented a really neat way of looking that things that some people here might find useful. What's so bad about presenting options? Does everyone HAVE to think the same? I am a Pagan, though, mostly Wiccan but also a few other things thrown in.

What do you, personally, believe? Do you believe in some sort of deity, and if so, which form? Maybe if you explained that to me, I could understand where you're coming from a bit better.

*Rochelle.

---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."

48

SUMMER,MAKING TIME 4 FUN/RELAXATION

by Tina in

jw
friends

do we,can we,make time for ourselves?.

many of us exiting the wts were limited and restricted regarding our free time/vacation activities.most activities didn't meet with wts approval for various 'reasons'.

"worldly associations,is it 'wholesome'?

Sunchild

So, Rochelle, (and oh, btw, yes, you are most generous. Thank you...)

Hee. ^_^

Of course? You say "of course"? Is winning easy or are you just good? And, uh.... "six hours"? It takes six hours to play ONE game?

*g* Winning ISN'T easy, but I'm pretty good at roleplaying games. And Xenogears takes a total of about 45-70 hours to finish, depending on how high you get your experience levels, how many sidequests you take, how lost you get, etc.

Hmmm... I think I've heard of this god...

Heh, haven't we all.

Take care,

*Rochelle.

---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."

48

SUMMER,MAKING TIME 4 FUN/RELAXATION

by Tina in

jw
friends

do we,can we,make time for ourselves?.

many of us exiting the wts were limited and restricted regarding our free time/vacation activities.most activities didn't meet with wts approval for various 'reasons'.

"worldly associations,is it 'wholesome'?

Sunchild

Hi, Teejay! You wanted me to answer this, therefore I took the time to dig it up. Aren't I generous?

Have you ever gotten close ... to killing God, I mean?

Of course. I've beaten Xenogears once already, and I'm about six hours away from doing it again.

If you have had God under your spear, so to speak, DID you do it?

The game makes that relatively easy, 'cause this particular God is a mindless, cruel, selfish monster that would destroy humanity if it were allowed to keep living.

If you did, how did you sleep that night? Did He visit you in your dreams?

Easily, and no. In that order.

And if you're actually asking me about my relationship with the Christian God, my answers would be about the same.

*Rochelle.

---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."

9

Fascinating site: Secular Spirituality

by Sunchild in

jw
friends

i ran across this site by accident last night.

if you're not too attached to the bible and are willing to keep an open mind, you might want to check it out: http://www.secularspirituality.org/index.html.

taken from the site's index page:.

Sunchild

While we may not believe in an apocalyptic salvation earned by an accumulation of brownie points with God, it doesn't mean that sitting around doing nothing or doing anything is as spiritual as it gets.

Have you read the articles on the site? That isn't the point that's made at all. The general idea seems to be that you don't need to believe in a being called "God" to reach for your own higher self and better the world around you. If you haven't read it, you might want to start here, with the article "Spirituality Without Supernaturalism": http://www.secularspirituality.org/spirituality/spirituality.html

I think it's already been expressed on this board that the supernatural is only an aspect of nature that we don't understand yet.

I know. I'm the one who expressed it.

It seems to me it then follows that what is not agreed upon is simply the explanation or understanding of things which might be considered supernatural, though there are phenomena we don't understand. We might deny superstitious explanations for them, but it would be foolish to deny the existence of the phenomenon itself.

I can't say that my own worldview coincides 100% with that of the site's author. But that doesn't negate the fact that s/he has presented some very interesting ideas, and I'm all for making new possibilities available to people in their search for themselves.

*Rochelle.

---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."

9

Fascinating site: Secular Spirituality

by Sunchild in

jw
friends

i ran across this site by accident last night.

if you're not too attached to the bible and are willing to keep an open mind, you might want to check it out: http://www.secularspirituality.org/index.html.

taken from the site's index page:.

Sunchild

I ran across this site by accident last night. If you're not too attached to the Bible and are willing to keep an open mind, you might want to check it out: http://www.secularspirituality.org/index.html

Taken from the site's index page:

Secular Spirituality strives to be a supportive and informative resource for people who are seeking to cultivate a nontheistic, Earth-based spirituality. Opening to and embracing and celebrating this life in this world, we cease the quest for transcendence and invest ourselves wholeheartedly in the here and now, to the benefit of ourselves and our world.
Whether you call yourself an atheist, agnostic, nontheist, pantheist, pagan, humanist, or what-have-you, may you find in these pages healing and inspiration for cultivating a positive and fulfilling life in this holy world.

There are also useful links and resources for people who are recovering from Fundamentalism, very much worth looking at.

Enjoy!

*Rochelle.
(Edited to add last note.)
---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."

42

Atheists at it again

by Rex B13 in

jw
friends

the site changed but the atheist proseletyzing continues.

isn't it odd how our two norwigs compliment each other in their attacks on god and the bible?

well, simon, you now have the honor of hosting a platform for the true apostates to spew their anti-god venom.. this kind of thing is sadly typical of those who leave the wts.

Sunchild

Hi, Francoise.

You're Wiccan! GOOD WORK! That is a beautiful philosophy.

True enough, though I'm not exactly Wiccan. I've found that a lot of Wiccan ideals resonate with my own personal truth, and I usually do tell people I practice Wicca just because it's less troublesome than simply telling them I'm a Witch. But since I also have my own take on certain things, would never join a coven, and don't feel I've finished my spiritual exploration, I'm actually a rather eclectic Neopagan Witch, not a Wiccan in particular.

It's too bad that after the Catholic Church got done with Wicca there were none left to write the histories of the mass slaughters of those innocent, beautiful people; so the Papists wrote it themselves. And of course, they made Wiccans out to be monsters - unlike their own murdering selves.

As JanH (who REALLY needs to loosen up) mentioned in his usual charming fashion, there was no organized religion called Wicca back in those days. But whether or not healers and users of magic called themselves Wiccans back then, it is... unfortunate that so many had to suffer torture and death because of a bunch of misguided zealots.

Don't let anyone know. Those crazy bastards are out to get ya! Especially the Southern Baptists. They find out you're Wiccan and they'll blow up your shit for you.

*g* Luckily for me, I live in a liberal college town. Everyone's pretty mellow out here, and Fundies are NOT popular. At the same time, though, I do know that there are some weirdoes out there who take Exodus 22:18 seriously. ("Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live....") Let's just say I wouldn't wear a pentacle in public if I went back to Mount Morris.

Give my regards to The All.

Heh, will do.

*Rochelle.

---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."

42

Atheists at it again

by Rex B13 in

jw
friends

the site changed but the atheist proseletyzing continues.

isn't it odd how our two norwigs compliment each other in their attacks on god and the bible?

well, simon, you now have the honor of hosting a platform for the true apostates to spew their anti-god venom.. this kind of thing is sadly typical of those who leave the wts.

Sunchild

That surprises me, since nothing like the Wicca existed until around the 1950s.

It is true that there was no organized religion called Wicca until Gerald Gardner introduced it in the 1950s, and I personally wish that fewer Wiccans and would-be Wiccans were guilty of bad scholarship -- i.e. their claims that Wicca as a religion is "ancient." It isn't. It does, however, have some important ancient ties.

Regardless of the rituals used or the name you slap on it, celebrating nature's cycles and having reverence for the earth is nothing new. Regardless of the words or the trappings, the use of magic is nothing new. Regardless of the context, the inclusion of female deity is definitely nothing new, and I'm glad that it's finally being recovered. All of these traits do date back to pre-Christian times, and if you go back far enough, all of our ancestors were pagans. And whether or not they called themselves Wiccans, a rather disconcerting number of people have been slaughtered by Christians for practicing what the Christians called witchcraft and/or for simply not being Christians.

There is also some truth to the idea that the Catholic Church rewrote witch history. In their persecution of people who they accused of witchcraft, they came up with some pretty inventive stuff: pacts with Satan, orgies with demons, Devil's Marks, all kinds of things that had no bearing on reality. I doubt that witchcraft would have such a scary rep now if it weren't for that old smear campaign.

*Rochelle, disorganized Witch who will never join a coven.

---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."

90

Complement a Poster

by Black Man in

jw
friends

here's your chance to complement a poster whose posts make you think, make you mad, make you laugh, make you cry.

i usually find something that i dig in everybody's post around these parts.

but i'll single out some peeps in particular.

Sunchild

BugEye, Tina and Farkel:

I'd also like to add that Data was my favorite character from Star Trek TNG.

*Rochelle.

---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."

48

SUMMER,MAKING TIME 4 FUN/RELAXATION

by Tina in

jw
friends

do we,can we,make time for ourselves?.

many of us exiting the wts were limited and restricted regarding our free time/vacation activities.most activities didn't meet with wts approval for various 'reasons'.

"worldly associations,is it 'wholesome'?

Sunchild

Nice topic, Tina! It's always fun to focus on the good things in life.

Lemme see.... For one, I have time for some very cool video games like Diablo II and Xenogears, both of which have "questionable" themes. The former has a lot to do with demons and such and is REALLY violent; the latter is considered blasphemous by some Christians because the ultimate goal is to kill God. They both have terrific storylines, though, and I love playing them. Note that there still has not been a single incidence of demonic activity in my house.

I've made time to do something I've wanted to do for quite some time: reading Interview With the Vampire. I did it, I loved it, and Anne Rice ROCKS. I plan to start on The Vampire Lestat on some quiet evening when I know I'll be able to savor it properly. While I was a JW, I was afraid to read those books. I've also started reading the Left Behind series just for the heck of it. <g> Oddly enough, the only really intriguing character in these Christian books is Nicolae Carpathia, the Antichrist.

Most importantly, though, I've made time to follow my dream of becoming a novelist, which I ended up abandoning a few years into my JW career. I was always afraid of what others would think of me if I did become rich and/or famous, and more than that, I was paranoid about what would happen should I include ideas in my books that weren't approved by the Society. Now, though, I'm free to write whatever feels right to me. I'm basically done with the outline of my first novel now. The only thing is, the process of creation is so enjoyable that some part of me never wants to finish working on it.

Viva freedom!

*Rochelle.

---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."

90

Complement a Poster

by Black Man in

jw
friends

here's your chance to complement a poster whose posts make you think, make you mad, make you laugh, make you cry.

i usually find something that i dig in everybody's post around these parts.

but i'll single out some peeps in particular.

Sunchild

2. I like to read Sunchild's posts too,
cuz I am often interested in the same topics,
spirituality/science threads, etc.

*sniffle* I exist! I exist! Thank you so much.

*Rochelle, who needs acknowledgement more than she lets on.

---------
"Most men complacently accept 'knowledge' as 'truth'. They are sheep, ruled by fear."
-- Sydney Losstarot, "Vagrant Story."