I kinda didn’t want this in GD, as I’m not really looking for a religious debate per se. Obviously a mod can move if things go awry.
How do you test your religion?
In another thread Liberal stated:
Now I’ve poked through written defenses of religion and read about various types of contemplative
prayer so I’m asking Dopers of all stripes: what are the nuts and bolts of your religious “experiments”?
Personal disclosure: I’ll say that I’m atheist and have practiced Vipassana meditation at various
intensities in the past- i guess I’m testing my weak humanist/materialist “faith”. It consists(briefly described) dually of a lightly held attention to a body part or moving body scan and a recognition of feelings/sensations that arise to interfere. Feedback I get is a good ongoing check of “background noise” in the head and good examination of how even simple sensations are manipulated before they hit the front of the brain. Difficult to quantify, but feels like useful detective work when I’m done. There are varieties to Vipassana of course but a nice free online
book is “Mindfulness in Plain English”
I like to stand on mountaintops during thunderstorms, clad in copper armor, and shout “All Gods are bastards!” (apologies to Terry Pratchet ;))
More seriously: I don’t really “test” my religion in the scientific sense. My religious beliefs are just that–beliefs, suppositions that I think are true despite no conclusive evidence. I don’t really hold any “fundamantalist” beliefs that are contradicted by science (e.g., creationism, young earth, etc.).
I’m similar to the OP. I am an atheist, and experimented with vipassana meditation in the past.
I managed to experience some interesting sensations (attributed to the low levels of real sensory input) but it was always too much effort to stick to the ‘instructions’. A lot of the online text that explained it made sense to me so I was really enthusiastic about it.
I’ve never spontaneously prayed in my whole life. I’ve only prayed as a habit drilled into me at school (at assembly and before meals) and on occasional compulsary visits to church (unless we just sang, I really can’t remember)
I can remember bits of the lord’s prayer…
From kingdom come, thy will be done. Hallowed be thy name. Forever and ever. ah-men.
That verse, Luke 4:12, tells us we should not test God, it says nothing about testing our beliefs. IOW, don’t jump off a cliff and pray that God would catch you before you hit the ground. He likely won’t. Throughout the Bible testing God is seen as a very bad thing[sup]TM[/sup].
Christians are told, however, to test their faith. Here are a few examples:
I Thessalonians 5:21
Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Romans 12:2
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.
1 John 4:1
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Our beliefs must be tested and refined. No one starts out with a full understanding of their belief system. I test mine through experience, observation, study, and talking to others who’s beliefs may or may not agree with mine. My religious beliefs have changed over time and will continue to change as I experience and study more.
I don’t test my religion. But maybe that’s because I’m only loosely associated with a recognized religion. I consider myself Catholic although I don’t attend church nor do I agree with everything the Church says. I do retain the basic beliefs I was taught as I grew up. My faith is my own and not dependent on what religious leaders of any stripe may say - especially those who proclaim that strict adherence to theirs is the only possible route to heaven.
One of the tenets of my personal faith is that it is useless and pointless to try to test God or even to try to understand. As a kid I often tried to figure out what heaven and hell would be. My hope is that heaven is having all the answers to the workings of the universe and its inhabitants.
Well, I appreciate the responses… though a couple of you answered my figuritive “How do we measure electricity?” with “I flick the switch, light goes on”
Also, if some of you guys want to take this oh so rare chance to take a cheap jab at the concept of religion, how about you don’t? Or at least help out the economy and hire a starving comedy writer.
Metacom&kunilou–I should have more verbosely called this thread “How do you refine the image of yourself,your connection with the Universe and everything”. Would that change your answer?
Obviously I don’t expect scientific methods to be involved here: there can only really be one observer after all. (I know many modern Buddihist boosters like to speak of it as a “scientific method” but of course it ain’t) I understand for some, religion is not something at the forefront of their mind or is of such a simple nature that no real conflicts of thought are brought up by it. But unless you have the same religious outlook you had when you were twelve, you’ve used some method to alter your beliefs.
Fair enough I suppose, though completely alien thinking to me.
This, I expect, is the most common Western method- coupled with lots of daydreaming.
I really have no say in this matter as I’m atheist, but it seems to me, if you truly believe, then there is no reason for you to test your belief. Why? It seems almost like doubting God regularly. Perhaps that’s why there weren’t more responses. People who “test” are often in the crisis state, where they’re still deciding.
Well Elenia28, perhaps you should read Doctor Jackson’s post again. I asked how one tests their religion - which is someones understanding of god- not test “god”.
I re-read Dr. Jackson’s quote. It’s only about Christianity. I didn’t take your OP to mean only Christianity.
And as I said, i don’t really have a bone to pick in this case. However, many people on this board do “test” their religion. It doesn’t seem to me that the average Joe looks critically at his religion, at least not in the U.S.
And I guess I don’t understand the difference really, of testing religion and testing God. Unless you are speaking of religion without God?
Christians don’t test God. They ‘lay their fleeces’ to test what God wants them to do next.
This is not my idea of typical Christian behavior, but I knew a girl in high school who would do it. One morning she counted how many girls were wearing pants vs how many were wearing dresses. If the pants won, she was going to do X and if the dresses, she’d do Y.
Why pants and dresses? It was what she had happened to think of the night before and she had prayed over it - giving the question to God. I don’t remember what the question was, but she had done her best to decide on her own and hadn’t been able to come to a conclusion. This was a more pious way of flipping a coin.
Not at all. If one were to view religion as a means of coming to a fuller understanding of the divine, then examining one’s existing concepts should be a constant exercise. Schools of divinity are created for people to gather to work together towards a greater understanding of the divine. Indeed, I would imagine that most of the great theologians wrote not from a “crisis” state of mind, where they felt compelled to assuage the guilt of doubting the veracity of their faith, but rather as an exercise, a sort of “talking through” divine questions that did not have ready answers.
One could observe that the history of religion is pocked with instances where humans claiming to represent the divine put forth concrete answers that served merely to elevate themselves to the detriment of their adherents. (In our hindsight, we should view these instances not as failings of divinity, nor even of religion, but merely of humanity.) Any religious leader who claims to have ALL the answers should be studiously avoided. The best religious leaders admit up front that they DON’T have all the answers, but offer to help guide the search for them.
Now to answer the OP, I fight my own ignorance on this most important issue in the same manner as I fight my ignorance on all other issues: by absorbing and ruminating on as much information as I can. I’m a Lutheran with little free time to devote to theological study, so I ruminate on things I absorb every Sunday from two pastors who are already well learned in Lutheran Chrisitan theology. Outside of that, I’m wanting to delve fully into the Large Catechism & CS Lewis, although I DO have a brand new copy of “Lord of the Rings” to read, too. So the debate as to which to devote the next year to reading is being waged in me. ‘Elevate my soul trying to understand the Divine Truth? Or an elaborate fantasy?’
(Please don’t hijack this thread just to "help solve the dilemma. OR to take a cheap shot at my wording of it. Your consideration is appreciated in advance.)
The important thing, to me, anyway, isn’t that my religion is right or wrong or better or worse, it’s that it helps me be a better person. Will I be struck down if I don’t fast on Yom Kippur? Of course not, I’ve not fasted in the past. But I did last Saturday and I think a quiet reflective day with no distractions was very helpful to me.
It should be noted that the footnote to this passage, Deuteronomy 6:16 from the Old Testament (the Jews’ Torah) says basically the same thing: “Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah”. Although I must admit that I have no clue what Massah is or was, it appears that those of the Jewish faith (such as myself) are not supposed to test our God either.
There are varieties to Vipassana of course but a nice free online