Not interested in Pursuing

I am wondering people's personal opinions on this, is it wrong to just not care to study or try to live with religion/spirituality in your life. Not that you don't believe but your not wanting to put it in your life, maybe you can say it's laziness, or perhaps somebody can be uninterested. But is it wrong? You think this person can be damned? Or whatever.

It is not wrong and no you are not condemned. It is a choice not a requirement in life.

nightowl

But like if you do believe in a higher power but don't choose to acknowledged it, isn't that like mis-worshiping or something? It's not any kinda expectation a higher power wants. Believing is enough?

I don't think it's possible to not have it in your life. It's who we are. However, it is very much possible that we can look at someone and think they are without it, simply because they pursue or experience or express their spiritual journey in a different way than we do.

Take my husband: when I bring up topics from this forum, he'll roll his eyes, crack jokes, or politely converse with me but you know he's just being polite and humoring me. On surface, you might conclude he's uninterested or lazy. Or... avoiding, because sometimes it is true he laughs but it is a nervous laugh... hee hee.

But, dig deeper and you'll learn he's a scholar on Catholicism (though disdains their teachings) and other similar topics. I can always count on him, for example, to give me the historical basis for gnosticism, or to discuss philosophical implications of quantum physics (and he'll be a stickler to make sure I'm not over-extrapolating and getting too metaphysical with the science).

Observe him long enough, you see that he experiences "God" in the little ways... gardening, being nice to homeless people, defending the downtrodden, seeing me smile back at him... and, he tends to do these things when he thinks NO ONE IS LOOKING. He doesn't need an audience. His communion with the big questions is personal and private -- you would easily miss the clues if you weren't looking, or your eyes were pre-judging him.

[psychoslice]

Everything we think we know about spirituality or religion is never what IS, we can never know, we can only live and be that of what IS, all else is just belief systems, ideologies, and concepts, these only point to what IS, they can never be what IS. So no, you don't need to study or have anything to do with the concepts of spirituality, you are already that, you cannot be anything else, its just the mind that takes you away from what you already are.

Originally Posted by ...Pandora...

But like if you do believe in a higher power but don't choose to acknowledged it, isn't that like mis-worshiping or something? It's not any kinda expectation a higher power wants. Believing is enough?

You can believe and let it come to you. Not worshiping does bring anything bad into your life. It does make your life richer but there is no set rules. It of course depends on your definition of God?

nightowl

NO, NO, NO, NO you are not damned to hell if you aren’t religious or studying spirituality. Whether one believes in heaven/hell is another issue. I don’t. Heaven/hell are a construct of organized religion. Many have moved past organized religions’ beliefs.

Worshiping any deity is not necessary. We are full partners w/ the Universe or the energies that are called God (source/prime creator). It is more than enough to simply respect this connection. We are just as respected as other energies in the Universe.

TRUST your gut feeling to do what is right for you today. If this is having a laid back attitude about spirituality this is completely OK. It is perfectly acceptable to just be a decent person & have good self esteem. If you feel drawn to investigating spirituality later, that’s OK.

Ignore others who tell you that you have to do whatever or you will go to hell. These are their beliefs. Even if they fervently believe them this does not make them the truth or mean that you have to share their beliefs.

Originally Posted by ...Pandora...

I am wondering people's personal opinions on this, is it wrong to just not care to study or try to live with religion/spirituality in your life.

Wrong? No, I don't think so. People can get by just fine in life without either.

You think this person can be damned?

I don't believe in damnation. So, no.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Originally Posted by ...Pandora...

I am wondering people's personal opinions on this, is it wrong to just not care to study or try to live with religion/spirituality in your life. Not that you don't believe but your not wanting to put it in your life, maybe you can say it's laziness, or perhaps somebody can be uninterested. But is it wrong? You think this person can be damned? Or whatever.

We are Spirit on a human Journey, how much more Spiritual can you get? The ones that would damn you are either the ones that want to control you or choose not to recognise the validity of a seemingly non-Spiritual Path. Either way, it's a reflection of their Spirituality. I often wonder if being Spiritual is like looking out of the window while the teacher is talking, or looking for a Big Mac in some exotic land when you could be sampling the local food. We've been Spirituality lobotomised in order to engage this human experience so perhaps anything other than the human experience is doing yourself a disservice. But then, taking a human perspective of Spirituality is also a valid Path. There's nothing wrong with being Spiritual nor non-Spiritual, they're just different.

Stick with reality. Nothing else is required. Otherwise we are not damned but we suffer.

3dnow