Synchronicity - What's your experience of it?

[yoshy]

something sentient you mean?

Yep, or at least whatever the word would be for the universe itself having sentience lol.

Most people do find comfort in the idea of "something else", a "higher power". i mean the idea that we are born to trudge through life and laugh a bit and cry a bit and hate a bit and love a bit.. and have to style our hair 25,000x and make dinner 30,000x and then just have it all washed away into forgotten meaninglessness when we die, is kinda a bummer.

No doubt about the above. Atheists like myself often dedicate ourselves to a particular worldly passion. (Not saying religious dedication isn't passionate just to be clear that wasn't a comparison!)

Check out absurdism: the "absurd" refers to our belief that the universe is inherently meaninglessness, but that very fact means we create our own meaning! Even if you don't want to read the philosophy books about it, I highly recommend Albert Camus's fiction. Specifically, The Plague and The Stranger are two amazing books.

The book The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt finds similar evidence. He identified 3 axes of happiness, and one is closeness to the "divine". Divine though is used more purpose and community. So in his work, 'divinity" doesn't depend on a deity or supernatural beings at all. Religion or least belier a high power, though of course, was and is the main component of the "divinity" axis for the majority of the world currently. The book is a little outdated, but I think it's still worth it.

(disclaimer: the people we affect positively do go on and hopefully pass those traits on to other generations.

Spoiler

Of course the negative ones get passed on too but im trying to keep things happy.

)


https://genius.com/The-police-synchronicity-i-lyrics

I really do like the idea of goodness being passed on. There is a genetic trait for fear so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a complicated genetic component for kindness. (Though I love the sentiment whether or not it's science or religion.)

 

[Ann K]

The Christion religion teaches "love thy neighbor", and the parable of the good Samaritan clarifies that this extends across group boundaries (Samaritans and Jews hated each other). Churches are imperfect embodiments of religions.

I'm an American, and what we see right now in our country is (generally from the southern protestant churches) a concerted support of Donald Trump and his worst policies, an opposition to any black or brown people, a virulent hatred of anyone who is homosexual or transgender, and a suppression of the rights of all women. All these things are spoken about openly from the pulpit, and many more such as the "evils" of speaking any language but English and of getting one's children vaccinated, as well as the long-simmering Protestant-Catholic clash.

We have not yet reached the levels of the Holocaust, or of Israel's attack on Gaza, but there certainly isn't a lot of "love thy neighbor" coming from those churches right now.

 

[JMartJr]

There are certainly churches that have gone down that path. There are also those that have not. Just to post some sources to back that up:

Police arrested about 100 clergy demonstrating against immigration enforcement at Minnesota's largest airport Jan. 23, and several thousand gathered in downtown Minneapolis despite Arctic temperatures to protest the Trump administration's crackdown.
...
The clergy were issued misdemeanor citations of trespassing and failure to comply with a peace officer and were then released, said Jeff Lea, a Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman. They were arrested outside the main terminal at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport because they went beyond the reach of their permit for demonstrating and disrupted airline operations, he said.

Rev. Mariah Furness Tollgaard of Hamline Church in St. Paul said police ordered them to leave but she and others decided to stay and be arrested to show support for migrants, including members of her congregation who are afraid to leave their homes. She planned to go back to her church after her brief detention to hold a prayer vigil.
...
The Rev. Elizabeth Barish Browne traveled from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to participate in the rally in downtown Minneapolis, where the high temperature was minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 degrees Celsius) despite a bright sun.

"What's happening here is clearly immoral," the Unitarian Universalist minister said. "It's definitely chilly, but the kind of ice that's dangerous to us is not the weather."

https://www.ncronline.org/100-clerg...on-enforcement-subzero-minnesota-temperatures

People are packing church sanctuaries across the state (North Carolina -- JM) to learn how to "protect our neighbor, heal the sick, feed the hungry, and welcome the stranger," Lansdale said, speaking from experience as she is working to organize clergy across Greensboro and the state.

"They're stepping up because we all belong here and to say 'If you want to get to our immigrant neighbors, you have to get through us.'"

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/baker-pastor-charlotte-north-carolina-ice-cbp-dhs
(My church was one of the ones where folks met and organized as described here. I put in time standing at Manolo's Bakery, discussed in the article, to stand between the folks there and anybody that might come to harass them. It seemed like the right place I ought to stand, as their storefront is decorated with kites! But I digress...-- JM)

Faith groups in Louisiana are mobilizing along multiple fronts in response to an ongoing surge in federal immigration actions targeting New Orleans.

Clergy and congregations from across the religious spectrum are organizing protests and know-your-rights training for citizens as more people share video recordings of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel operating in their communities.

That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the calling and actions inspired by the urgency of the moment, said Leigh Rachal, executive director of the Louisiana Interchurch Conference, a coalition of denominational and other faith groups such as the African American Episcopal, United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran and Episcopal churches in addition to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the National Baptist Convention of America.

"Across traditions, our sacred Scriptures teach us that our role is to welcome strangers and uphold the dignity of every single person. It is important in these times to lift that collective voice and to remind one another of the importance of how we treat one another and that the image of the divine is in each of us," said Rachal, who also serves as a commissioned pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The motivation to organize also has an emotional edge for clergy as they learn of masked agents swooping into New Orleans with the brutality ICE has demonstrated in Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte and the Triangle region of North Carolina.

"It makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me angry, to be honest," said Marc Boswell, senior pastor at St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, about the ongoing action dubbed by authorities as "Operation Catahoula Crunch."

https://baptistnews.com/article/new-orleans-clergy-organize-interfaith-opposition-to-ice-raids/

Edit to add -- I meant to include this from our friends over in the Methodist Church (I'm a Presbyterian but I try to get along with everybody! ^_^)

Leaders and members of more than 600 congregations of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church have signed onto a full-page ad in The Charlotte Observer condemning aggressive conduct by federal immigration agencies.

The ad, signed by more than 800 congregants and clergy across the conference's 640 churches, appears in the Feb. 4 print paper. The ad was paid for by individual donors. It calls the treatment of immigrants during recent ICE raids "aggressive, undisciplined, illegal, and inhumane." The ad follows the killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota by federal agents in January.
...
Bishop Ken Carter, the resident bishop of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, said the ad was born out of a grassroots desire from congregants who saw what was happening in Charlotte and across the country and wanted to take a stand. They didn't want their silence to be misconstrued as approval, he said.

"This is more people trying to reckon with how I live as a person of faith, on the one hand, where I say that I love people. I love all people because they've been created in God's image, no exceptions," Carter said. "... and then on the other hand, how do I live within my heart and within my life with what I see happening in my country. People are trying to reconcile those two things."

Last February, the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church joined two other faith groups in suing the Trump administration over changes that allowed immigration officials into churches. (Emphasis added -- JM)
...
"It's more an act of loving our neighbor," he said. "We love our country. And we want our country to be a place, as we have been for years, … where people can come and have liberty and justice."

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/religion/article314544649.html



Where churches and other congregations are failing to take a stand, or are taking the wrong one,they deserve criticism, I believe. But I hope we'll be cautious not to tar with too broad a brush.

 

[deirdre]

The book The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt finds similar evidence. He identified 3 axes of happiness, and one is closeness to the "divine". Divine though is used more purpose and community.

That sounds like Jordan Peterson. I wonder if he read that book.

Though I love the sentiment whether or not it's science or religion

I meant a nature vs nurture type thing. but not only applying to those you birth (i didnt know fear was genetic..interesting.)
@JMartJr said it more poetically.. the ripples in the pond.

 

[deirdre]

There are certainly churches that have gone down that path.

There are?! I've never seen a church spouting that stuff from it's pulpit, thank God. Are those those TV cable things where the preacher paces around on stage being all loud and flamboyant? The only church i get on my rabbit ears is boring catholic masses on Sundays.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I'd recommend the YouTube channel Esoterica, if you'd like to understand the historical development of Judaism and Christianity. Great stuff.
If you are too young to know this song, it's a good one:
Song: "Dear God", by XTC: Here
It sums up the cognitive dissonance pretty well.

 

[Ann K]

I'd recommend the YouTube channel Esoterica, if you'd like to understand the historical development of Judaism and Christianity. Great stuff.
If you are too young to know this song, it's a good one:
Song: "Dear God", by XTC: Here
It sums up the cognitive dissonance pretty well.

Here's one that uses biting sarcasm to get the point across.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY

 

[Mendel]

Here's one that uses biting sarcasm to get the point across.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY

So because Putin is not religious, he failed to come up with reasons why Ukraine belongs to Russia. Gotcha. /s

People instrumentalize religion. If that doesn't work, they instrumentalize something else.
But in a society where churches hold power, at least instrumentalising religion means people with ethical training have a hand in the decisions.

You look at Trump claiming Greenland or Venezuela and wonder whether he could do it if he had to have the approval of the Catholic Church for that.

(And, yes, the history of the churches in the Third Reich is very interesting.)

 

[Mendel]

If we're arguing via moving pictures, I recommend The Mission (1986). It's won an Oscar.

 

[Todd Feinman]

It's always gone hand in hand with power , from the beginning.
"I'm a special ape, and I have a divine mandate from the great invisible ape that makes the universe go."
<edit> religion also was a great unifying and organizational principle in early civilizations, and seems to confer some evolutionary advantages, regardless of the veracity of its beliefs; people still have it.
I don't know why it's taken as a given that the demiurge cares so much about one species, and if it doesn't act like the ultimate benevolent parent, we can't accept it and must introduce an antagonist like the Devil.

 

[deirdre]

Here's one that uses biting sarcasm to get the point across.

using personal morality standards to "mob rule" or terrorize populations to get what one personally wants, is certainly not exclusive to religion. Plenty of atheists engage in the same behaviors. Does it really matter if God is one's God, or Intellectualism is one's God, or Guilt is one's God?

no. the outcomes and behaviors of human groups are all the same, regardless of which banner a particular group flies.

 

[GM4AJK]

no. the outcomes and behaviors of human groups are all the same, regardless of which banner a particular group flies.

I've always looked at it as a resource thing. One group wants another group's resources. [my opinion] It just also happens that religion is a great way to build larger, binding communities beyond a standard tribe size, which is also useful for building bigger armies. It's also a useful tool for getting people to do things they normally wouldn't, like killing other people. [/my opinion]

 

[Ann K]

using personal morality standards to "mob rule" or terrorize populations to get what one personally wants, is certainly not exclusive to religion. Plenty of atheists engage in the same behaviors. Does it really matter if God is one's God, or Intellectualism is one's God, or Guilt is one's God?

no. the outcomes and behaviors of human groups are all the same, regardless of which banner a particular group flies.

One of the basic problems is the "God gave this land to me" belief. That attitude makes it impossible for religious absolutists to reach any kind of compromise with others. Secular governments can avoid that pitfall (although they don't always do so), and sales and trades of property can succeed.

Another problem is the unavoidable fact that religions have a supernatural basis, and, as in Metabunk, we have never shown anything to be supernatural and never solved any problems by appealing to the supernatural. The policy here is to show evidence wherever possible, and that requires us to refer to facts, not magic.

 

[deirdre]

It just also happens that religion is a great way to build larger, binding communities beyond a standard tribe size,

political ideologies too.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Of course religion and spirituality can be different things; the individual's highest aspirations and the yearning for profound understanding of the universe and experience of the sublime is often wedded to cultural and historical symbolism, stories, trappings they have grown up with.
The ancient Egyptians were considered to be among the most religious people in the ancient world, and now their temples are in ruins, their gods fallen upon the ground.

 

[deirdre]

One of the basic problems is the "God gave this land to me" belief.

that's not exactly a big problem in the world. Most church land take overs had to do with "saving the savages and introducing them to Christ", not a "god gave me this land" idea.

Another problem is the unavoidable fact that religions have a supernatural basis,

and atheist political parties have an emotional basis. i dont get your point.

supernatural bias or psychological bias... i dont really see the difference.

 

[Ann K]

The ancient Egyptians were considered to be among the most religious people in the ancient world, and now their temples are in ruins, their gods fallen upon the ground.

Their "gods" changed along with their rulers as well ...as happened with many other kings over history. The conspicuous political/religious connection, seen so often in history, is an excellent reason to discount any "truth" value.

 

[Ann K]

atheist political parties have an emotional basis.

OK, I give up... what's an "atheist" political party when it's home?

 

[Todd Feinman]

If you are in power, it helps to be a god or friend of the gods, and align or equate yourself with the most powerful things around; natural forces in the environment.
You want to remind the people of the special status you have by virtue of your father or mother having had special status. They are dead now, and it helps to venerate them; now being invisible, they must be with the gods. So you have a mandate from heaven to have special status on earth, trot around in gold, and get a nifty tomb where you try to take it all with you.

 

[deirdre]

what's an "atheist" political party when it's home?

is that a riddle? like a knock knock joke?

Domestic infidelity?