Follow your (reality-based) bliss

My bliss is reality based, as well. My life is as good as I make it. That's all there is.

Herb Silverman: Another excellent essay. It may be possible to find your bliss or your spiritual enlightenment by traveling or otherwise escaping daily life,but for the great majority of us, we best find our enlightened life at home or we are not likely to find it.

Concerning the term SPIRITUAL. I find this word useful from time to time in both my writing and in verbal converstaion. However, I am always careful to make clear that I am not refering to a soul or any other kind of supernatural event or entity. Rather, I use the word to refer to that segment of human nature that prompts us to seek meaning and purpose, to seek positive connections with others, with the natural world, the universe, and with whatever we may consider ultimate.

And for me finding our bliss means finding ways of experiencing justifiable happiness more deeply, more often, and more consistently. For me, this is the pearl of great price.

T R O G L O D Y T E

Interestingly Mr. or is it 'Sir' RICHARD DAWKINS (an Apocalyptic-Off) was one of the reasons i[WE] stayed on ONFAiTH, but but R.D. hath No Clue about The APOCALYPTiC-ON FAItH. aka The "Religion Of Everything Before The Science of Everything" (Faith/Belief/REligion). His

"Greatest Show On Earth..."

Navin1,

"Happiness is a nice goal if you have no responsibility."

I would think that it is also a nice goal if one does have responsibility.

"Those with responsibility know that you have to limit happiness to allow goodness."

Have to?

Is there a conservation law of happiness v. goodness?

Are they mutually exclusive?

"Of course when someone else is paying for your happiness, then its an easy thing to seek after."

That's true of anything.

Funny thing, I just don't see happiness on the faces of those being killed for our protection. Or on the faces of those judges charged with determining that an injustice has been done, can't be undone, and they must decide how to do the right thing. Or the face of the father that needs to let a child die.

Happiness is a nice goal if you have no responsibility. Those with responsibility know that you have to limit happiness to allow goodness. Of course when someone else is paying for your happiness, then its an easy thing to seek after.

hariaum

There are many people these days that have rightfully rejected organized religion but are still in search for some kind of spirituality and/or transcendence. These people often take the idea of a spiritual journey literally.

For some reason, many people seem to think that places are magical and that if they stand in the right spot they will transcend their routine lives and gain some sort of divine knowledge and/or wisdom. The fact is that knowledge comes from vigorous study, experimentation, observation, and critical thinking. Wisdom comes from self-examination and the application of what we have learned through the knowledge that we have gained. We can’t cheat the process by traveling to mystical places or claiming divine knowledge/wisdom without being able to demonstrate such things.

You can read the rest of my response to this topic:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-8928-Philadelphia-Atheism-Examiner~y2010m8d10-On-Faith-Traveling-in-search-of-transcendence

I will be responding to every issue posted in the 'On Faith' section. If you would like to be notified when my new response is up, please subscribe.

With all respect for your journalistic effort I have yet to see an analysis of the dominant western society's REAL religion. In the past few centuries there was a modal change in reference to god. It use to be a human construct made by society and in relation to society. Somehow this model did not match the development of western societies, so there was a significant shift. The roots may have been found within the Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition but the aspects of it that served the social system were cultivated to come to fruition in X-ian denominations.
God was no longer something worshiped by a society collectively, enforced collectively as a vital part of society. It has now become something that relates directly to the individual. I think the US with its mandatory (individual) freedom to worship gave the foundations of this modal change.
The true religion of the west is the worshiping of the individual and the decline of anything collective in nature. As in the supernatural the natural is not something that relates to society, the struggle to survive, to eat, and find shelter, it is something for the individual to determine by complying with the rules of the social system. If the individual is blessed with natural goods ha must be having a good relationship with god as well. If not, and facing hardship dealing with the natural elements it is because that results from a challenging relation with god.
For those of us who choose to reject the supernatural we don't have the freedom to reject the individualistic. We are prohibited in acting in a collective way, whether spiritually or materially.
So there is a mandated dominant religion in the west, the one of individualism which we are forced to obey and serve.
True atheism is not limited to the philosophical choice to reject the supernatural, it is a political struggle against a dominant system.
Only in large scale natural disasters does this contradiction emerges. The state usually fails to provide quick solutions, the different individualistic gods don't seem to respond to prayer, and people end up organizing and acting collectively in dealing with the "natural". Both religious and political leaders feel threatened and undermined in this moments, and it is where true human nature of the collective being self organizing and acting to deal with the elements without leaders, hierarchies, and legal systems.

Travel is one very good way of enlightening oneself, though there are many others. As Herb says, follow your bliss. But there is little reason to believe that the deep, enlightening experience one feels in doing so is somehow supernatural.

A scroll was recently unearthed, foretelling the coming of both Snickers and Mars bars.

I say, "Amen".

I have to admit that the word "pray" in the title of the book (and movie) has biased me against both, but I may end up at least seeing the movie sometime. Certainly, the Buddhists have known for some time that time spent in the service of others is the fast track to happiness. I laughed out loud at Professor Silverman's Snickers story (should I say that I "snickered"?). The faithful will surely take that as a sign from above that Professor Silverman should eat more healthily!