still here. still working it through.

[kevin]

[kevin]

just thinking, you know.

i looked the other day at my profile, and i see that i've logged over 4000 posts here, and i wonder why. that's a long time in internet terms, and it seems i've been here longer than many people, although i don't consider that important. i wonder why i'm here, and what my assignment here is. i believe in assignments, and sometimes i think i'm here just to serve as signpost, to point to a door.

this is an interesting place. some days it seems like a page out of bunyan's vanity fair. other days it seems like a prison cafeteria, or a lifeboat. there's a lot of diversity here in some ways, and a lot of inbred tail-chasing in others. i've learned a lot from my time here, and have chosen to apply much of what i've learned to my own life, and to my own relationship with god. in conversations with people here i've been required to think harder about some things i used to take for granted. sometimes that has resulted in a deeper understanding of what i already know or already believe, and sometimes the result has been that i reject or radically re-assess some aspects of my relationship with god.

that hasn't changed-- the reality of god in my life has not been touched by the conversations here i have had with people who disagree with me on the subject. sometimes they call me stupid, foolish, deluded, or double-thinking. interestingly, some believers have lumped me in with the atheists they dispute with, because my relationship with god is one they don't trust or is too different from their own. for my own part, i try to be civil even to people i disagree with, although i don't always live up to that. i just keep trying to do better.

i've wondered why i've been led here, and the answer seems to have several parts. i'm a servant, in the most important sense. i'm here to sweep the dirt and trash from in front of an open door that god invites all of us to step through, in order to keep it orderly and welcoming. i'm here to point out a simpler and less-cluttered pathway to god, one that isn't buried under a decorative glazing that obscures the real form beneath. and for my own part, i'm here to learn, both from people who choose to believe and people who don't. that means i'm here to stand under the acid bath, in the path of the shot-peening, to have my own corrosion and verdigris cut away, until what i have left is the bare metal. sometimes that's a painful and humbling process, but it's an essential one. losing the pride and becoming a student of the lessons god sends my way is a difficult task, but a worthy one.

so i'm still thinking. i heard the piece of music from the call on the truck radio the other day, and it made me think about who i am and why i'm here. like elijah in the cave, i listen for the still small voice. i still believe, and i'm still thinking.

[JustMyron]

+1, Kevin.

I've been thinking about why I'm still here, too, after a few years. I was planning on taking some time this Sunday to write a long post. I won't clutter up your thread with everything I've been thinking about, but I will say that I think exposing yourself to different viewpoints, challenging yourself, and being open to new ideas, leads you towards a better life, and a better understanding of your place and purpose. Creating an environment where that can happen, and exposing people's tendency to lump those who don't agree with them into enemy-groups, so that that tendency can be looked at head on and dealt with, are two of the things I've wanted to do while here.

I think you're on the right track, and reading your post I feel like you and I are on similar tracks, even though our beliefs about God are different. And I'm glad you're here.

[kevin]

clutter away, myron, as you're led. there's nothing private or specialized going on here.

i only have one conversation in this forum, and it crosses all the threads, all the time, with all of the people, so i don't mind hosting the same

[leese]

Kevin, you and a handful of other God believing people on the forum remind  me  to not to lump all the Christians I don't know personally, into one objectionable pile.It's easy in real life not to do this, but not so easy here when I just see harsh words representing their beliefs. I have a long, long way to go in learning tolerance and diplomacy in some of my reactionary areas. Being here both tries and builds in turn. Thanks for 4000 posts.

[FGOH]

i still believe, and i'm still thinking.

+1 for a lovely post, especially that last sentence.

[hypsell]

Great post Kevin.Maybe this IGI is a little like your truck driving.Driving down many different roads in many places rather than being stuck in only one familiar area.Most of us have a mental ideological home we leave and venture out of just like you do from your real home.Have you ever considered the similarities of your job with this forum?

[jill]

I love your post.

I also keep meaning to tell you I love your new avatar too!

[SkunkButt]

I love your post.

I also keep meaning to tell you I love your new avatar too!

It is actually a self portrait of kevin.

So real eh?

[kevin]

the brainless scarecrow seemed like a good idea at the time. i found it looking up some information on molecular evolution. it's an interesting image, because it reminds me that brains aren't important to god, or at least, they're not important in themselves. what you do with what you have is much more critical, like the servants with their talents, in matthew 25. doing what god wants is much more important to god than being correct in your ideas about him, in my opinion. there's plenty of people who memorize all the right books, and say yessir to them, and don't act on what they say. jesus scorned people like that, in his parable about the two sons--one who said yessir and didn't, and another who said i won't, but did anyway.  you can't follow christ and think it's okay not to try to do what he says, over and over.

on truck driving and IGI, that's an interesting comparison. i've made every lower 48 state except oregon in the last two years, and i've been to seaports, sawmills, steelyards, hayfields, airports, foundries, machine shops, rolling mills, drawworks, construction sites, barnyards, department stores, distribution centers, military bases, lumberyards, cabinet factories, appliance factories, tubing factories, shingle factories, and i delivered the tornado machines to the chicago museum of science and industry. i see all sorts of people, who believe all sorts of things, speak all sorts of languages, and come from all sorts of places. there's a lot of that in IGI, but interestingly, this forum has some channels with pretty firmly-defined boundaries in some places. some people break out of them, and it's interesting to learn from them when that happens. there's some holes here in the variety of religion that i've encountered in the physical world. no voodoo here, no sikhs, few pagans, no hindus, no buddhists, no amerindians--new age or otherwise.

individual christians come in a lot of flavors, some pretty good and some not so good, and it's worthwhile for me to remember that no one group of them today can claim exclusive entitlement of the name. lots of them will tell you just that, though. i'm a quaker because i think the quakers have it mostly right, and if i can keep the original pre-apostasy vision of christianity alive, then i think i will have served god as well as i can. part of that means trying hard not to be a jerk, which leads back to the original thought i had up above about doing being better than believing correct doctrinal minutiae.

so i've ended up chasing my own tail, it seems. 

[David M]

individual christians come in a lot of flavors, some pretty good and some not so good, and it's worthwhile for me to remember that no one group of them today can claim exclusive entitlement of the name. lots of them will tell you just that, though. i'm a quaker because i think the quakers have it mostly right, and if i can keep the original pre-apostasy vision of christianity alive, then i think i will have served god as well as i can. part of that means trying hard not to be a jerk, which leads back to the original thought i had up above about doing being better than believing correct doctrinal minutiae.

so i've ended up chasing my own tail, it seems. 

As I read particularly the Gospel of Matthew, I hear Jesus saying that we're all gonna be jerks sometimes no matter how hard we try, but God loves us anyway.

Yea, God!

Of course, it's much easier for us to get indignant when someone else is a jerk than to be gracious when we've been a jerk ourselves.  Jesus seems to find that a tad annoying for some reason.

[davdi]

"so i'm still thinking. i heard the piece of music from the call on the truck radio the other day, and it made me think about who i am and why i'm here. like elijah in the cave, i listen for the still small voice. i still believe, and i'm still thinking."

my wife has asked me on several occasions why i am on this forum.  i give her the same reason you give, kevin.  instead of sweeping away the trash, it seems that i add to it all too often.  the truth, in my opinion, is that the message is simple and given my propensity to over-explain things i gum up the works.  i am too argumentative for the quiet life and that makes me an easy target.  but i support you, and i hope you know that i am behind you and will be.

[kevin]

well, you know, it's a lot harder to be brief and simple than otherwise.

who was that author once, who was asked to be brief, and said

"i don't have the time to be brief!"

it's worth remembering that anything just a smidgeon too long will be ignored. as will contributions to threads after they exceed a certain number of posts.

on argumentativeness, though, it's hard for me to be quiet if i read something that i think is inadequately supported. inadequate support for something is much worse than being wrong, most especially if it's then held to without addressing the lack of support

[kevin]

[kevin]

been a while.

years, since i first came to this place.

i am still the same person in many ways. much the same in some, but much larger and deeper in others.

lots of water under the bridge. lots of episodes in the larger story, chapters in the anthology. sometimes a poem, sometimes a ballad, at other times a stream of consciousness. growth without plan, consciously, following the leading all the while.

not a leader, not a trail-breaker. a follower, one with trust in the leading.

i came here some years ago with a provisional acceptance of the traditional quaker revelation of christianity. i came to that revelation through trust in a leading, and while i no longer follow in the same direction, i still trust in the leading.

but i am no longer as sure of the source, of the provenance.

i believed in the living god, the personal god, the immanent god whose finger was to be felt in the creation, not merely a transcendent watch maker, one who wound the watch and wandered off. as a quaker, my acceptance of all theology was provisional, dependant upon personal experience. no book written by others in centuries past could substitute for the immanent, living, contact with god, the touch upon me of a divine presence.

i had that touch, and felt it frequently. not with the glib acceptance of someone whose beliefs are founded in an old book, and who looks only into the book for the face of god. rather, the direct contact, the wellspring-- as the quakers put it, the fountainhead of the divine in our world-- the personal connection and communication of god to man, direct, unmediated, undiluted, felt and followed.

i had that touch, but it has been withdrawn. for some time now, i have not felt the divine influence in my life. i have not  experienced the feeling of being led, of being drawn to a path. in quaker doctrine, this is a common experience, one in which the presence of god is felt, and is then withdrawn, encouraging the believer to step out in faith and follow on that basis. the expectation is that the follower will catch up with the leading, and renew the discipleship with deeper commitment.

in my case, that has not yet happened. and because i am still a quaker, and still believe in the necessity of direct, personal, and immediate contact with god as the basis for the relationship, i can no longer espouse the faith that i cannot support with experience or sound reasoning. so i have become an agnostic. a non-theist friend.

unlike many forms of religion, quakerism is quite happy to accomodate non-theism, something that many atheists seem to have a great deal of trouble with. like theravada, quakerism can be practiced without the assumption of a deity, as a philosophy, or world view, rather than a theology.

at this point, that is where i am, an agnostic non-theist friend.

this can be reversed in an instant, should th eimmanent god of my recent belief choose to manifest himself in a manner that will restore my faith in his immanence. but until that happens, i am forced by my beliefs in the consistence of heaven and earth to reserve my service in his name, and to instead serve in some other name.

this presents a problem for me, because i guide my life by morality, by my understanding of right and wrong as one conforming to a divine relationship that pre-existed. without that over-arching moral framework, i no longer have a firm ground to assert the existence of good and evil, right and wrong, truth or falsehood, war or peace. so i'm still working that through.

i have never yet heard a non-theist explanation for right and wrong that made any sense, and i've heard a lot of them.

so at any rate, i'm still here, and i'm still thinking.

except now, i suppose i have some 25,000 posts in this odd place.

[Shnozzola]

One of the interesting things for me, when one is "losing their religion", is this idea that "now nothing matters".

In no way does the absence of god lessen the power of love.

I absolutely love life, and realize the importance of loving my fellow man - and, for me, realizing there aren't any deities - never were - makes love seem that much more important to me.

[kevin]

hey, schnozz.

you say that you "realize the importance of loving my fellow man."

can you explain why?

and why anyone should agree with you?

i'm not into the usual angst-driven debates of atheist sites.

just explain your views, if you would, please.

[Shnozzola]

Kevin

I think through evolution, we now have that importance as a part of us.  I think love is a part of evolution that we as a species are learning/ have learned. We could also say that religions have been an important part of that evolution.  I just think it all could have happened naturally.   That's my own thinking on it, Kevin - no angst, just the journey of life from natural carbon to carbons bond through amoebas, plants, ground hogs, etc, and us. There is certainly no reason anyone has to agree with me, but every father and mother looking at their newborn seems to.  Not too good, but an attempt to explain my views.

[kevin]

so to you, love for your fellow man is an evolutionary strategy, just part of the journey of life. the natural outcome of the merging of the biotic and the abiotic world?

there are other biological strategies. here is one of a caterpillar being devoured by the larvae of parasitic wasps:



here is one of a wildebeest being eaten alive by hyaenas:



here is one of baboons killing an infant as part of a dominance struggle:



and here is one of human beings eliminating rivals for food and environmental resources:



all of ^^^these behaviors are adaptive, and all take place routinely in nature and in the human part of the natural world. as you say, we are driven by evolution.

i have given you four examples of behaviors that could have "happened naturally," and in fact, did happen naturally, given the world you suggest.

are all of these consistent with the evolution of love, as you understand it?

[Shnozzola]

Yes - seems funny doesn't it, that some of us see the wisdom of Jesus' good Samaritan story, but 2000 years later we still have Nazis, Hutu vs. Tutsi, ISIS, etc......

Evolution is so much more slow and, how does Donald Rumsfeld say it - untidy, than we would like.

And I guess, as you've introduce the angst, that's where it comes from, isn't it, when, in 2016, an ISIS warrior comes at you with a scimitar and asks what you believe........angst.  But, at its best, safely on the internet, debate.  And the angst is why the debate continues to be so so important.

[kevin]

can you address the fundamental question, schnozz?

In no way does the absence of god lessen the power of love.

I absolutely love life, and realize the importance of loving my fellow man - and, for me, realizing there aren't any deities - never were - makes love seem that much more important to me.

for simplicity, where is the power of love in the last example?

during the 20th century, the nazis exterminated some 6 million jews, a vast success in evolutionary terms. in poland, jewry was essentially eradicated.

this was a behavior completely consistent with evolution, in which closely-related groups eliminate more distantly-related groups.

how is this consistent with the power of love, as you see it?

[Airyaman]

Interesting. What makes one believe in a divine presence at one point and then later, it seems to be gone? Was it ever really there? What made you think it was there? Why is it no longer there?

As to an explanation of right and wrong, to me, i don't think there needs to be any. It is what it is. There is no real explanation, because I believe that we as humans define what is right and wrong according to where we are in life and who we are as a person.

I'm glad you still have a community that can accept you in your time of soul searching. I wish that it was the same for me. My dad recently passed away (8/22), and it would have been easy to go back to a religious way of life to cope and answer the questions I had. Instead, I realized that we all die and that one day I will be the one that passes on as my family watches and mourns. It's what we know. It's what we do.

I wish I could be the gloating anti-theist who said "I told you so" but I'm not. I know what it means to lose something that had been a part of me for decades. Real, imagined, or just cleverly hidden, it does not matter. It's still a hole that either has to be filled or overcome.

I can't pray for you, but I can wish you well. I hope that is enough.

[kevin]

what's happening, kevin?

Interesting. What makes one believe in a divine presence at one point and then later, it seems to be gone? Was it ever really there? What made you think it was there? Why is it no longer there?

the leadings and connections which were once present no longer occur. in the past, they were common enough that i was forced to accept a supernatural source. since they don't occur now, they were either mistaken interpretations, or god has withdrawn, which are functionally equivalent, really.

As to an explanation of right and wrong, to me, i don't think there needs to be any. It is what it is. There is no real explanation, because I believe that we as humans define what is right and wrong according to where we are in life and who we are as a person.

if that is the case, then our standards here should not be applicable to the lives of someone else, elsewhere. yet we routinely condemn torture, human trafficking, and war crimes among people who do not share our belief that they are wrong. and we impose our beliefs on them. are we wrong to do that?

I'm glad you still have a community that can accept you in your time of soul searching. I wish that it was the same for me. My dad recently passed away (8/22), and it would have been easy to go back to a religious way of life to cope and answer the questions I had. Instead, I realized that we all die and that one day I will be the one that passes on as my family watches and mourns. It's what we know. It's what we do.

I wish I could be the gloating anti-theist who said "I told you so" but I'm not. I know what it means to lose something that had been a part of me for decades. Real, imagined, or just cleverly hidden, it does not matter. It's still a hole that either has to be filled or overcome.

I can't pray for you, but I can wish you well. I hope that is enough.

i'm sorry to hear of your father. my parents have been dead some years now, so i'm the leading edge of the wave now. thank you for your kind words, kevin. seriously.

but as an agnostic, i haven't lost anything, really. non-theism is as old a thread in quakerism as quakerism itself, and people come and go across the boundary.

in my own case, it is my fundamental quakerism that holds the nature of god accountable to the characteristics he is said to possess. if he is alive, he should be aware. if he is concerned, he should be responsive. if he is neither, then he is non-existent or of a different nature than commonly supposed.

so its a continuation of the same principles. and i was an atheist for the first half of my life, anyway, so it's a familiar niche.

[Garja]

Hey Kevin, didn't know this was going on. I hope all is well and you aren't coming to a non-theistic perspective simply because things aren't going well. All the same I wish you well even if (as you say) I do have trouble understanding your perspective exactly. But hey, everyone's journey is different (even if I hate the use of the word "journey" in that sense, but it seemed to fit).

[kevin]

Hey Kevin, didn't know this was going on. I hope all is well and you aren't coming to a non-theistic perspective simply because things aren't going well. All the same I wish you well even if (as you say) I do have trouble understanding your perspective exactly. But hey, everyone's journey is different (even if I hate the use of the word "journey" in that sense, but it seemed to fit).

no, nothing is wrong. good job, great kids, so on. i never looked to god for any rewards, so the ups and downs of life situations aren't really relevant to the question, for me.

what is puzzling about my perspective? either god exists, or he doesn't. the ways that i believe his existence were manifested are longer in effect. if they return, i'll have to readjust my beliefs.

[Airyaman]

what's happening, kevin?

Interesting. What makes one believe in a divine presence at one point and then later, it seems to be gone? Was it ever really there? What made you think it was there? Why is it no longer there?

the leadings and connections which were once present no longer occur. in the past, they were common enough that i was forced to accept a supernatural source. since they don't occur now, they were either mistaken interpretations, or god has withdrawn, which are functionally equivalent, really.

I felt I had a connection to a god too. It was very real to me, and I would tell everyone of my faith, trust and relationship with this god. I was convinced of the reality of this god in my life but it was not something that I could show beyond what was in my head.

Perhaps your god is real and has withdrawn. If so, why? Was it you, or him? Was it you holding up the relationship the whole time, or was he really there for you even at your weakest times? If you did become weak, why was he so ready to give up on you? You are the weaker part of the relationship already after all, being human while he is a god. You are destined to fail while he never does...so he should never depart no matter what, no?

As to an explanation of right and wrong, to me, i don't think there needs to be any. It is what it is. There is no real explanation, because I believe that we as humans define what is right and wrong according to where we are in life and who we are as a person.

if that is the case, then our standards here should not be applicable to the lives of someone else, elsewhere. yet we routinely condemn torture, human trafficking, and war crimes among people who do not share our belief that they are wrong. and we impose our beliefs on them. are we wrong to do that?

Are we wrong to see something as wrong when we see it as wrong? That is what this boils down to. We can only truly view life through our own personal lens.

Is torture wrong? I tend to think so, because I don't want to be tortured. On the flip-side, I have not done anything that I feel is deserving of me being tortured. If someone tortured a person because they were a certain race, color, religion, sex, etc. than I would feel strongly that this was a bad act. If they were tortured because doing so might prevent the harm of countless other people, I might hesitate to judge the action as evil though it would still remain a struggle.

Morality to me tends to be very circumstantial.

I have left off the balance of your response as I have no real comment to it.

[Jstwebbrowsing]

Kevin, have you considered the case of Job?

[Garja]

Hey Kevin, didn't know this was going on. I hope all is well and you aren't coming to a non-theistic perspective simply because things aren't going well. All the same I wish you well even if (as you say) I do have trouble understanding your perspective exactly. But hey, everyone's journey is different (even if I hate the use of the word "journey" in that sense, but it seemed to fit).

no, nothing is wrong. good job, great kids, so on. i never looked to god for any rewards, so the ups and downs of life situations aren't really relevant to the question, for me.

what is puzzling about my perspective? either god exists, or he doesn't. the ways that i believe his existence were manifested are longer in effect. if they return, i'll have to readjust my beliefs.

That's good, and I wasn't trying to accuse you of using God as an atm machine or anything.

It's the whole "I don't believe in a god, but I still participate in the religion" I guess. Unless I misinterpreted you.

[catwixen]

I find this sad. So strange as I am Atheist and believe world is a better place if we lose religion.
How do you feel Kev? Happy in yourself?

[eyeshaveit]

at this point, that is where i am, an agnostic non-theist friend.

this can be reversed in an instant, should the immanent god of my recent belief choose to manifest himself in a manner that will restore my faith in his immanence. but until that happens, i am forced by my beliefs in the consistence of heaven and earth to reserve my service in his name, and to instead serve in some other name.

Dear Lord, smack Kevin, just a light smack, just hard enough to force him to pry his mind off of his fantasy r?sum? and to begin to glorify and enjoy you. Amen.