# I dont understand religion... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 13, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498 "2015-11-13T21:01:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Stoneburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Stoneburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoneburg)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/81 "2015-11-24T20:04:31Z")
QUOTE=Czarcasm;18884333]This _again_? What is with this claim that a lot of people pushing this woo stuff make that they used to be hard-line atheists, when most of them eventually show through their words that they have no idea what atheism really is? [/QUOTE] Eh… I was on the board of the humanist secular society here and since I’ve ben active on this message board since 2003 you can easily verify that I was, indeed, a rabid atheist. Perhaps not quite as bullheaded as you or as prone to create straw men, but I was pretty rabid. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > God is a mindless clump of dirt covered in vegetation and infested with parasites? It’s a _perspective_. It’s called personification. How hard can this be to understand, really? You are (I assume) not an unintelligent person, so why do you insist on making yourself dumber for the purpose of this discussion? > [@razncain](#): > > You’ve been here since 2003, any examples here on SD displaying where you were “the most rabid and unforgiving atheist” you claim to be? Should be easy to find several quotes if you do a search. I don’t feel like I need to ”prove” my atheist credentials though, I’m pretty aware of exactly what opinions and perspectives I have held. And if you want to insinuate that I am lying about my past, there’s not much point in having a discussion anyway. Because why would you want to engage in a debate with someone who is willfully dishonest? I wouldn’t. I also don’t spend time trying to ”prove” to people that I am not. > [@marshmallow](#): > > You changed the criteria. > > Can you give an example of a religious explanation for qualia? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a religious tradition even talk about the subject. Maybe an Eastern one has. AFAIK it’s a mostly a debate started by Western philosophers, which tend to be secular rationalists. > > You won’t find a lot of scientists espousing dualism. I’m not sure why monism isn’t an acceptable explanation. Some religions follow it, i.e. everything has one true substance, which is God. > > I think a lot of scientific explanations can be poetic and even sound like something a hippie dippie spirtualist would say. Stellar evolution - we’re all star dust. Biological evolution - all life is interconnected, we’re all brothers and sisters and more alike than not. Even proud man depends on “lowly” bacteria. Extinction events - nothing lasts forever. There are cycles of death and rebirth. And so on. I believe this was the premise of Dawkin’s book _Unweaving the Rainbow_. > > I would agree that some atheists completely miss the point of (mostly Abrahamic) religious discomfort with scientific conclusions. No, creationists aren’t wrong when they characterize it as life coming from slime. Positing that maybe life evolved on hot rocks or whatever is missing the point - they don’t like that humans weren’t specially created. Afterall, many religions hold that humans were made out of dust or mud (the Aztecs, corn meal), but the main point is that a creator breathed life into them and set them apart from animals. > > And humans are monkeys. We’re clever monkeys who wear pants. Having a linguistic debate about what “monkey” means is also missing the point. Sometimes I think these atheists are uncomfortable with their own beliefs. > > If you want to go old school we should incorporate [Venus statues.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines) Actually, this isn’t too far off from modern culture. Really though, worshiping gods is just so…historical. Organized. It’s all about that animism. Shamans are cooler than priests anyhow. Actually I don’t see anything wrong with any of what you wrote. And I don’t think that religion offers better answers than science, which is the straw man that the atheist cheerleaders keep propping up because that assume that their duality are the only options. Somehow it seems impossible for some people to grasp that both ideas may be wrong or only partial. Or that just because one school of thought contains one thing that is true/false it doesn’t mean that everything is true/false. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/82 "2015-11-24T20:25:06Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > QUOTE=Czarcasm;18884333]This _again_? What is with this claim that a lot of people pushing this woo stuff make that they used to be hard-line atheists, when most of them eventually show through their words that they have no idea what atheism really is? Eh… I was on the board of the humanist secular society here and since I’ve ben active on this message board since 2003 you can easily verify that I was, indeed, a rabid atheist. Perhaps not quite as bullheaded as you or as prone to create straw men, but I was pretty rabid. [/quote] > [@](#): > > Should be easy to find several quotes if you do a search. I don’t feel like I need to ”prove” my atheist credentials though, I’m pretty aware of exactly what opinions and perspectives I have held. And if you want to insinuate that I am lying about my past, there’s not much point in having a discussion anyway. Because why would you want to engage in a debate with someone who is willfully dishonest? I wouldn’t. I also don’t spend time trying to ”prove” to people that I am not. I would really like to see what you posted that you think qualified you as a “rabid” atheist because it would help us define what you mean by that vague term, and since _you_ were the one that claim that you posted in that manner, I think that _you_ would be best suited to judge which of your early posts quality. It’s only logical. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/83 "2015-11-24T21:44:35Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > I’d say it is pretty evident that having rules is better than not having rules, and that is what religion gave us, they gave us rules and structures that allowed us to build societies. I am not aware of ANY society or civilization that did not start out as religious, and if I had to pick between living under an authoritarian regime or in complete anarchy, I would pick the regime. Our primate relatives have societies also - without religion. Living in societies with rules is in our genetic makeup, and I suspect primitive tribes with leaders and social rules predated religion. > [@](#): > > The reason modern and post-modern people can’t see the benefits of religion is because they compare it to modern and post-modern ideas. Of course religion looks bad then. But _at the time_ it was _better than the alternative_ is one part of what I am saying, and the other part is that if it wasn’t for religion we wouldn’t have secular rationalism or anything post-modern. Every society has developed through these stages, just as we as individuals go through certain stages in our development. That we did go through these states doesn’t mean we had to. In a world with conflicting tribal groups, hatred of the other probably had great survival value. Even if religion had value back then in stabilizing societies, it isn’t necessary now to stabilize societies, as shown by the fact that the most stable societies today are secular. > [@](#): > > I’m also saying that I’m a bit fed up with the arrogance of atheists who don’t seem to understand this, and who also don’t seem to understand that even today, religion offers things that are needed for some people. Sure it does. So does Star Trek Fandom. Putting ourselves in another world, perhaps a world with a loving god, is good. But we’d be better off realizing it is only a story, and not enforcing Kirk vs. Picard with the power of the state. > [@](#): > > Like when you’re a kid, you need rules set down from your parents, and you won’t always understand why those rules are needed, you may not even have the capacity to understand it yet. At that point your parents play the same role as religion does. I grew out of that stage. Our society should also. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/84 "2015-11-24T22:12:16Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > God is a mindless clump of dirt covered in vegetation and infested with parasites? Well, it does try to kill us every so often for no reason, so in that respect Earth is somewhat like God. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/85 "2015-11-24T22:21:40Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > No it doesn’t. Scientific rationalism fails to solve the problem of consciousness, for example, either reducing it to ”the ghost in the machine” or into cartesian dualism. It also posits that the universe randomly sprung into existence out of nothing for no reason at all, which is frankly a quite pathetic explanation. Admittedly ”God did it” isn’t much of an explanation either, but rationalism has basically just replaced ”God” with ”Ooops!”. The religious explanation, as far as I can tell, is Goddidit. No explanation for the consciousness of god or gods though. Why are we here? The answer that there is no why - we are here and we ask how we got here - is not pathetic just because you don’t like it. If the reason for the tragedies we see all around us comes from God, God is one sick puppy. I appreciate that it helps many people to think there is a reason for all, but let’s not confuse psychic balm with reality. Or, as my friend’s father used to say, “why is a crooked letter.” He was a concentration camp survivor, telling him that God in his mercy killed his first wife and child would be evil incarnate. ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/86 "2015-11-24T23:03:38Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > Should be easy to find several quotes if you do a search. I don’t feel like I need to ”prove” my atheist credentials though, I’m pretty aware of exactly what opinions and perspectives I have held. And if you want to insinuate that I am lying about my past, there’s not much point in having a discussion anyway. Because why would you want to engage in a debate with someone who is willfully dishonest? I wouldn’t. I also don’t spend time trying to ”prove” to people that I am not. I didn’t insinuate anything, it was just one sentence with a simple request as you were as an rabid atheist. I’m just curious about such things on how others perceive their past behavior. But is this an admission you will not be forthcoming with anything to back up your assertion? You made the claim in **GD** ; this is not **IMHO** or **MPSIMS,** and as you say, _I’m pretty aware of exactly what opinions and perspectives I have held._ I guess what I’m doing now though, is doubling down, and calling your bluff on this. **GD,** AFAIK, has a more stringent format of what is followed. I didn’t previously bother with a search, was hoping you would just ante up, because like I said, I’m always curious about such claims, but just recently I skimmed through threads you started going back to 2003. You claimed you was _the most rabid and unforgiving atheist,_ gosh, I would think you would have a lot you could fall back on. You can either back up this assertion, or admit you were at least mistaken or using hyperbole if this is the case. Another reason I doubt your scenario is because of the moderation of this board. They don’t put up with such crap, and wouldn’t allow atheists or theists to act in a rabid manner for too long for either side, without a hell of a lot of notes, suspension or permanent ban. And if they didn’t act on it, I would bet my bottom dollar you’d have found yourself in the **BBQ Pit** numerous times because the Dopers…they sure the heck wouldn’t have put up with it either. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/87 "2015-11-25T00:31:03Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > No it doesn’t. Instead we get an infinite amount of answers which leads more to it being incomprehensible. And God wants something of us? Is He in need? Does He need our help? Um, Ok if you say so…The only way this makes any sense if you consider multiple competing religions. Usually a single religion will come up with some form of 'consistency. Also usually some forms of 'unknowing; > [@](#): > > Only fundies say such things. Cite please > [@](#): > > And let me guess, whatever you worship really isn’t a religion? Well I know God as well as you know your friends and family, perhaps better. Is that a religion? God has nothing to do with any religion. You have to get your head out of the clouds and open your mind and heart to beyond what the religion of athism has taught you. Religion does not equal being God’s child, religion is the opposite of being God’s child. Atheism is no exception, it is a religion with rules, apparently with you the false statement that God=religion. > [@](#): > > I’ve never once had an atheist come to my door, or stop me in the street proselytizing to me, and every Sunday morning on the TV set, who do you see on almost every channel doing the proselytizing? Yea right, if that were true the SDMB would have closed down in 1997. > [@](#): > > I would say atheists probably do feel the most comfortable with their arguments, which is why in settings such as this on SD and other places on the internet, you’ll probably find them more engaging, but outside of the internet, I’m guessing most go about their business spending little or not much time at all on the subject. No where have I found the Church of Atheism more strong then on this board. And I have attended many ‘skeptic’s’ groups, so have not been devoid of atheistic’s meetings. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/88 "2015-11-25T02:30:36Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > [QUOTE=AHunter3] > > Religious experiences are experiences that are out of the ordinary: for the individual person who has them, that leads to descriptions that tend to contrast the religious experience with the “natural”, a description that I don’t much care for but have sympathy for. But never mind that for the moment… > > The point is, they are experiences that are out of the ordinary. So along comes someone who says they haven’t had an experience that is out of the ordinary. I should be surprised?? Okay, maybe save it for later then, because I hope you get back to that, and explain what was so out of the ordinary about your religious experience that convinced you. [/quote] No, no, I don’t mean that the un-ordinariness of my experience “convinced” me. I mean that I had an experience, it happens to be an experience that I describe as a religious experience, and it was an experience that was out of the ordinary. A different out-of-the-ordinary experience might not have caused me to draw the same conclusions, but I can’t imagine any everyday mundane experience, on the other hand, would have left me later concluding “I just had the kind of experience that must have been the origin of our species’ notions of God. Well I’ll be damned. There’s actually a reality underlying all that mythos”. Any more than some experience NOT out of the ordinary would be likely to lead you to harbor such thoughts, I would imagine. [QUOTE=razncain] [QUOTE=AHunter3] Atheists and agnostics should logically be the majority of people, perhaps the overwhemling majority. And if we control for the public-shaming and social-necessity history of obligatory religion, that has probably always been the case. For every person who has seen the light, another 10,000 people who identify as theistic have felt the heat instead. Go in peace and rejoice in your courage and authenticity that you refuse to give lip service to something that isn’t true for you. Theists are certainly the majority, although often in the upper echelons of academia, particular the sciences, and in particular the leading scientists, atheists are by far the vast majority. [/quote] Are theists, particularly Christians really feeling all that much heat in America though? Faith is held on a very high pedestal in this country, and others, in most circles. Often what heat they do feel, is coming from other theists. Polls show that atheists in America are among one of the least trusted groups. Do you think it is deserved? [/QUOTE] You didn’t understand this part either, apparently. Imagine a person born somewhere in the western hemisphere in the last 1000 years. That person most likely has not had a life-changing religious experience and has no reason to pretend to an understanding of the stuff that gets promulgated as religious thought… except for the heat. The pressure of other people who will treat that one like a pariah, a social criminal of sort, if he or she doesn’t at least give lip service to believing in God and probably embracing a big chunk of the rest of the dominant religious ideology that surrounds them. In other words, I was not saying people feel a lot of heat because they are theists, I was saying a lot of people are theists because they have felt the heat (as opposed to seeing the light). ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/89 "2015-11-25T03:26:10Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Cite please [Fundies Say The Darndest Things](http://www.fstdt.com/) You’ll find plenty by doing a search engine on that cite saying atheism is a religion, I found dozens in a few seconds. Perhaps you’ll find yourself already on that cite. Think I’ll send some of yours in just on this thread, what do you think the chances are of it getting submitted? ---
**Author:** ![thepillar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@thepillar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thepillar)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/90 "2015-11-25T07:40:14Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And your exercises will cause people to believe this? Not exactly. The exercises themselves are personal in nature. All atheists/agnostics acknowledge having a physical body and nothing else. So the first stage in demonstrating the existence of the supernatural is to prove to them that they have a soul. I’ll refer to a few terms from the Ancient Egyptian Religion again to make my case. You see, the ancient Egyptians believed that each and every individual is a composite of both a tangible and invisible constituent. The tangible physical body was referred to as the \*khat \*; but on top of this, the individual was also believed to possess a more rarefied and ethereal substance resembling the physical body that they called the _Ka_. After the _Ka_ came the _Ba_ or the soul, and so on and so forth. These three bodies were believed to be interconnected and that a change in one would lead to a change in the other. This was the basis for performing certain exercises they called \*HEKA \* or work on the _Ka_. The individual would physically perform certain acts that would affect their _Ka_ which in turn changed the constitution of their _Ba_ or soul. This change in the _Ba_ would result into an extraordinary experience felt by the individual that would leave no doubt in their mind about the what has just occurred to them. Now I can understand that this all makes for some ‘interesting’ reading on some message boards, but believe you me, carrying out the exercises and experiencing their effects is a completely different story altogether. After this, the Ancient Egyptians further postulated that even the planets themselves (yes, all 7 mentioned in my earlier posts) also possessed a \*Khat \*, _Ka_, _Ba_ and other elements. Each planet was also believed to possess some sort of consciousness (_Khu_) that resided within its spiritual body (_Sah_) and that each planet carried out a specific function that affect each and every individual on earth. For instance, the Sun was responsible for health; the Moon, action; Mars, war; Mercury, intelligence; Jupiter, fortune; and so on. This postulate was the basis for the potency of astrological talismans which were believed to accentuate the respective qualities of the planets in the individual who possessed them. Again this all makes for some interesting reading until one has actually created an authentic astrological talismans and experienced its effects. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/91 "2015-11-25T07:45:37Z")
What are the exercises? ---
**Author:** ![thepillar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@thepillar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thepillar)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/92 "2015-11-25T08:16:50Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What are the exercises? Read Chic and Sandra Cicero’s _Self Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition_. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/93 "2015-11-25T13:07:09Z")
> [@thepillar](#): > > Read Chic and Sandra Cicero’s _Self Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition_. “Golden Dawn” as in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn? ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/94 "2015-11-25T14:44:09Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > No, no, I don’t mean that the un-ordinariness of my experience “convinced” me. I mean that I had an experience, it happens to be an experience that I describe as a religious experience, and it was an experience that was out of the ordinary…. Regardless if you find it ordinary or not, what was your religious experience? And I suppose you consider yourself the one in 10,000 that has seen the light? > [@AHunter3](#): > > You didn’t understand this part either, apparently. Imagine a person born somewhere in the western hemisphere in the last 1000 years. That person most likely has not had a life-changing religious experience and has no reason to pretend to an understanding of the stuff that gets promulgated as religious thought… except for the heat. The pressure of other people who will treat that one like a pariah, a social criminal of sort, if he or she doesn’t at least give lip service to believing in God and probably embracing a big chunk of the rest of the dominant religious ideology that surrounds them. > In other words, I was not saying people feel a lot of heat because they are theists, I was saying a lot of people are theists because they have felt the heat (as opposed to seeing the light). Apparently. Couldn’t find any obfuscation on your part. Nor did you get my quote right with the part you were responding to, having some of my material quoted under your name. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/95 "2015-11-25T15:08:01Z")
> [@thepillar](#): > > Read Chic and Sandra Cicero’s _Self Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition_. Can you just give us a basic rundown of the exercises, or a couple of examples? A small sample of what we might be getting into? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/96 "2015-11-25T15:13:39Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > “Golden Dawn” as in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn? [You’ve got it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Tabatha_Cicero#The_Golden_Dawn) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/97 "2015-11-25T16:22:53Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > Regardless if you find it ordinary or not, what was your religious experience? And I suppose you consider yourself the one in 10,000 that has seen the light? Yeah, I’m actually that conceited. I’m also lazy: [The incident](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7983327&postcount=2) [Some](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2693779&postcount=41) [musings](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9948817&postcount=49) [and](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9949463&postcount=51) [thoughts](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=306399) [and](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7765755&postcount=2) [discussion](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10041269&postcount=40) on the subject thereof. If your interest is serious, click the links. I’m not sufficiently caffeinated to proselytize this morning. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/98 "2015-11-25T17:31:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [You’ve got it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Tabatha_Cicero#The_Golden_Dawn) Cool, thank you! If Mrs. Cicero is faithful to Israel Regardie’s interpretation of the Golden Dawn, there’s actually not a lot of theism involved. Mr. Regardie held that “though the Golden Dawn rituals persistently use phraseology which implies the belief in a personal God, that usage to my mind is a poetic or dramatic convention.” All that fancy gods-and-angels talk was, to his mind, merely “technical methods” by which to achieve the real goal: “Exalting the individual consciousness.” (This sets Mr. Regardie apart from people like Aleister Crowley, who ended up actually believing in “the independent metaphysical reality of the entities contacted in magical ritual.”) In terms of practical spiritual exercises, Mr. Regardie probably wasn’t a big fan of conjuring spirits and that sort of thing (though other G.D. members were). For example, when he published the Stella Matutina material, he left out stuff like the _Clavicula Tabularum Enochi_, and other spirit-conjuring stuff he found embarrassingly “mediaeval.” Some of the practical spiritual exercises he _did_ recommend were, IIRC, staring into [tattwa cards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattva_vision) until one’s vision got all blurry and weird, as well as scrying for the purposes of astral projections. Maybe he worked with magic mirrors as well? Not sure, been a while since I read up on the man… Of course I do not know where, exactly, Mrs. Cicero stands on all this - or, for that matter, where **thepillar** stands. Or which of these exercises, in any, he or she practices. (For all their talk of strictly following ancient traditions, occultists tend to be incredibly open to both innovation, experimentation, and creative interpretation.) ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/99 "2015-11-25T17:57:25Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > First of all, let me take the opportunity to say that I have become increasingly convinced that **virtually any statement (positive, negative, or neutral) that anyone makes about religion as such—“Religion is this” or “Religion does that”—is, at best, a half-truth**. Religion is such a large and multi-faceted thing that it’s hard to say anything that is true about all of it. I have to disagree with this. The one thing that is true about religions is that none of them are true. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498/100 "2015-11-25T18:28:16Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > I have to disagree with this. The one thing that is true about religions is that none of them are true. What do you mean by this? What does it mean for a religion to be true? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-religion/737498.md?page=6)