That’s possible! But that’s also why I’m calling attention to it here. Religiosity is a negative signal for many folks, and I think it’s important to debunk the need for religious thinking to gain the benefits of meditation.
My stance comes from growing up in an extreme fundamentalist religious bubble. It set me up for a lifetime of unwinding unhealthy beliefs and patterns of thought, not the least of which was deep confusion about my self worth when hearing leaders of the church openly discuss stoning gay people as the truly appropriate consequence biblically. That kinda fucks with your head when you’re coming to terms with your own sexuality (I’m bisexual). I’ve seen first hand what these systems of belief do to families and communities, and while I’m not one to claim that all religion is awful, I do think it’s a bigger problem than help in the current social climate.
The ideas of most religions also set up a fundamental misconception about our relationship with the world/environment (that we’re separate from it) that is an existential threat to reaching some kind of environmental balance.
I personally think human beings need some kind of central spiritual belief or identity to feel satisfied/happy/whole. I'm not sure, but in your case, it almost sounds like you might be getting that identity from REJECTING the shitty religious bubble you grew up in. Sounds like you feel like you're on a good track and moving somewhere with your life -- even if it's away from religion. So I guess in my book, you're religious.
>>I’ve seen first hand what these systems of belief do to families and communities, and while I’m not one to claim that all religion is awful, I do think it’s a bigger problem than help in the current social climate.
For me, this is really case-by-case, but my suspicion is that most religion is generally better for people than no religion -- so I suspect I disagree with you, but on limited data.
>>The ideas of most religions also set up a fundamental misconception about our relationship with the world/environment (that we’re separate from it) that is an existential threat to reaching some kind of environmental balance.
Hadn't heard this one before - huh. I think there are a lot of reasons we burn coal but IMO the fact that we're religious isn't one of the main ones. To me, religion is a great path toward loving others and the world such that we'd want to conserve them and it.
Thanks for the perspective here as well. I do agree that people behave “religiously” more broadly, but I tend to think of this more as an overarching phenomena of meaning-making, with capital r “Religion” making up one major category of thought, and non-religious paths are distinct in that they don’t bring the baggage of beliefs in deities/spirits/etc.
So while I understand the philosophical framing of religion in broader terms, In the context of meditation, I tend to avoid the religious connotation entirely because it’s overloaded and a lot of people immediately conflate the two.
To draw a crude comparison, people go to the gym religiously. But people aren’t likely to misinterpret that comment as meaning going to the gym is “Religious” in the sense that people understand religion in the cultural zeitgeist.
> Hadn't heard this one before - huh. I think there are a lot of reasons we burn coal but IMO the fact that we're religious isn't one of the main ones. To me, religion is a great path toward loving others and the world such that we'd want to conserve them and it.
Alan Watts explores this idea and I think it’s worth considering. Most people in the west - especially anyone raised around Judeo-Christian beliefs - are taught that they are born into this world, that they’re separate from it, that they’re here to have dominion over it, and that the real game is what comes after we die.
Even though I left the Christian belief system behind, I had deep unexamined beliefs that everything would be fine, because how could it not be? If all of this was created, and I was made, it implies that something bigger is in control. This is at the heart of climate denialism in all of the circles I grew up in.
The eastern framing is that we grow out of this world. We’re intrinsically part of it, an expression of it, and not separate. This brings a much different set of implications, and at least for me personally and based on what others have shared about their own experience, cultivating this view drastically altered my engagement with environmental issues, how I think about food, decisions I make about how I spend my time, etc.
The point isn’t that we burn coal because of religion, but that many popular religions instill a mindset that makes burning coal not a problem.
> To me, religion is a great path toward loving others and the world such that we'd want to conserve them and it.
I love that this is your view, and I wish that more people held it. Unfortunately I’ve been exposed to the toxic alternative almost exclusively, spread across about a dozen churches throughout my youth.
Moving beyond the message of love for a moment, I think religious organizations need to carefully examine the 2nd/3rd order effects of certain core beliefs.
“Don’t look up” seems like an example of the ultimate failure mode of instilling a sense of “God will take care of things” into the generation that has to contend with the fact that this is not true.
I should add that I say all of this while somewhat lamenting what has been lost in the breakdown of the church. A sense of community and belonging connected to a notion of something greater than oneself is sorely missing in modern society. I hope that better options emerge, or that major religious organizations can rehabilitate their image and mission effectively.
