Religion, a ramble.
So. Family, Loyalty, Religion.
It'll be easiest to write on the last of those three. Probably hardest to write on Loyalty.
Let's get started then.
Aside from the fact that I'm called Sheepfucker, that my father is a (C of E) priest is one of the more well known weirdnesses I have. My parents are christian. When I was 9 or so, I started questioning the notions of christianity. At the time, I was too young to really separate out the idea between that and questioning religion as a whole. The abrahamic god as featured in the bible did not appeal to me, I was too analytical. Nowadays, my stance on the abrahamic god is that the abrahamic god is a nice idea if he's a cunning manipulator. The abrahamic religions make sense if viewed as the means of an observer muddying the waters and seeing how we react. However, I could not bow to an entity which tells us one set of things to see how we react while wanting us to do others. As such, that's out of the window.
That's not to say I discount religion. I am quicker to discount Revealed Knowledge than the other kinds, as I always have to question the motives of any being revealing great wisdom in the ways they tend to be claimed to have done. I generally enjoy hearing about people's beliefs. I'm also, I think, more critical of "mainstream" religion than I am of the things a lot of my friends believe. Why that is I can't say precisely. Currently, the religion I find most interesting to study is islam - the formal layering of various sources of knowledge appeals to me far more than the slapdash approach taken by the other abrahamic religions, even if I don't agree with a lot of what is actually being said. There, I think I know one part of why I'm more critical of mainstream religion - I don't like the idea of mandated morality. Morality is, I think, something that stems from humanity, and people claiming that moral X trumps moral Y because of divine mandate winds me the fuck up (My one f-bomb for this rant used on that point; possible significance to be inferred).
I'm open to the idea of supernatural occurrences, spiritual things... I'm struggling to find the right words. What I mean is that, faced with something blatant, I would not go down the "rationalise it all away" route. I'd rather like to discover mystical goings-on that I can interact with. I don't go looking for them, because I feel no need to - there is no "hole in my life" that I seek to fill with belief.
As far as I know, humanity has a predisposition to certain kinds of belief because of our great ability with pattern recognition. It's an incredibly useful tool and serves us well, and leads us to many things including pareidolia (seeing images in nonimages like shapes in clouds) and apophenia (connecting unconnected events). I revel in both of these - my love of a cheesy conspiracy theory has grown into habitual noticing of synchronicity (Thanks, Unknown Armies!) and drawing connections between events, even when I generally recognise those connections to be bunkum.
I draw a certain pleasure from ascribing significance to random events, things devoid of meaning on their own and suchlike and then noticing them while ignoring other things. This, I believe, either stems from the same place as some folks get religion or satisfies the same itch for it.
So, yeah. I'm agnostic through a combination of openness to new things and not getting the right feelings from any new things I've tried.
There was a time when I was fervently atheist; that's more of a family matter than a religious one, though, so that's for the next ramble.
It'll be easiest to write on the last of those three. Probably hardest to write on Loyalty.
Let's get started then.
Aside from the fact that I'm called Sheepfucker, that my father is a (C of E) priest is one of the more well known weirdnesses I have. My parents are christian. When I was 9 or so, I started questioning the notions of christianity. At the time, I was too young to really separate out the idea between that and questioning religion as a whole. The abrahamic god as featured in the bible did not appeal to me, I was too analytical. Nowadays, my stance on the abrahamic god is that the abrahamic god is a nice idea if he's a cunning manipulator. The abrahamic religions make sense if viewed as the means of an observer muddying the waters and seeing how we react. However, I could not bow to an entity which tells us one set of things to see how we react while wanting us to do others. As such, that's out of the window.
That's not to say I discount religion. I am quicker to discount Revealed Knowledge than the other kinds, as I always have to question the motives of any being revealing great wisdom in the ways they tend to be claimed to have done. I generally enjoy hearing about people's beliefs. I'm also, I think, more critical of "mainstream" religion than I am of the things a lot of my friends believe. Why that is I can't say precisely. Currently, the religion I find most interesting to study is islam - the formal layering of various sources of knowledge appeals to me far more than the slapdash approach taken by the other abrahamic religions, even if I don't agree with a lot of what is actually being said. There, I think I know one part of why I'm more critical of mainstream religion - I don't like the idea of mandated morality. Morality is, I think, something that stems from humanity, and people claiming that moral X trumps moral Y because of divine mandate winds me the fuck up (My one f-bomb for this rant used on that point; possible significance to be inferred).
I'm open to the idea of supernatural occurrences, spiritual things... I'm struggling to find the right words. What I mean is that, faced with something blatant, I would not go down the "rationalise it all away" route. I'd rather like to discover mystical goings-on that I can interact with. I don't go looking for them, because I feel no need to - there is no "hole in my life" that I seek to fill with belief.
As far as I know, humanity has a predisposition to certain kinds of belief because of our great ability with pattern recognition. It's an incredibly useful tool and serves us well, and leads us to many things including pareidolia (seeing images in nonimages like shapes in clouds) and apophenia (connecting unconnected events). I revel in both of these - my love of a cheesy conspiracy theory has grown into habitual noticing of synchronicity (Thanks, Unknown Armies!) and drawing connections between events, even when I generally recognise those connections to be bunkum.
I draw a certain pleasure from ascribing significance to random events, things devoid of meaning on their own and suchlike and then noticing them while ignoring other things. This, I believe, either stems from the same place as some folks get religion or satisfies the same itch for it.
So, yeah. I'm agnostic through a combination of openness to new things and not getting the right feelings from any new things I've tried.
There was a time when I was fervently atheist; that's more of a family matter than a religious one, though, so that's for the next ramble.