Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> So, yes, there is a "value" that come with it, which you don't have 
>> without it.
> 
> I disagree that spirituality without a personal sky daddy is necessarily 
> better than a spirituality with a personal sky daddy.
> 
Depends, I suppose, on your definition of "better". Some people seem to 
be virtually "incapable" of functioning as rational human beings without 
  a god. Frankly, some of those people scare the hell out of me, since I 
have either seen them in moments when they questioned it, or have been 
told by them what they "imagine" they could do, if they suddenly found 
they didn't have a god looking over them. For those people.. having such 
a "spirituality" that is derived from the magic sky faerie, is better 
then without it.

Then there are the others, who use belief in the forgiveness, mandates 
from, communication with, and self selected quote mining of his supposed 
words, to justify doing all the things that the former group would do, 
but **as a result** of having the belief. That category would be better 
off if they had to deal with the cold hard truth that there isn't 
anything out their that cares about every tiny little thing they do, and 
they bloody well better start being nice to real people on earth.

That the majority fall some place between these two, with occasional, 
and limited, wobbles in one or the other direction, based on their pet 
peeves, doesn't at all, in my mind, suggest that the first group might 
have been better off if introduced to moral thinking, instead of fear 
based self control, and the later to the concept of humility, without, 
in either case, resorting to what has, in one fashion or another, helped 
manufacture their rather dangerous mental instabilities in the first place.

For both sets, a spirituality that sees the world for what it is, and 
find awe in that, is far superior than one that sees it as all corrupt, 
or all made for their own purposes, with only an imaginary friend there 
to tell them "how" to use it, or what things to avoid doing.

Note, the "spirituality" of those in the middle, while they often walk a 
bit close to both lines at times, has "far" more in common with the 
naturalist/humanist spirituality they deny believing in, than the deity 
based one. So.. it might be argued that, if you examine religious 
spirituality, in its purist and untainted form, it has serious problems. ;)

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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