What difference does it make?

With all the various discussions of religion and spirituality....

I find myself with one question:

What difference does it make that you believe such and such or this as opposed to that? I am not talking about salvation or damnation and which way you go. I am asking what difference does it make to you personally on a day to day basis that you believe whatever it is you believe? Do you act/not act in a particular way? Does it affect where and how you spend your money?

Leave the rhetoric and theory behind, tell me the practice.

Originally posted by Aynat
With all the various discussions of religion and spirituality....

I find myself with one question:

What difference does it make that you believe such and such or this as opposed to that? I am not talking about salvation or damnation and which way you go. I am asking what difference does it make to you personally on a day to day basis that you believe wha ...[text shortened]... ere and how you spend your money?

Leave the rhetoric and theory behind, tell me the practice.

Personally, being agnostic and not really concerning myself with things beyond my comprehension, it makes little difference to me. I think I am a moral person and try to do the best by others as I can but not being bogged down to anyone belief is enjoyable.

So spirituality as little to no effect on my spending habits.

Originally posted by Joe Fist
Personally, being agnostic and not really concerning myself with things beyond my comprehension, it makes little difference to me. I think I am a moral person and try to do the best by others as I can but not being bogged down to anyone belief is enjoyable.

So spirituality as little to no effect on my spending habits.

Joe, I know that's B$. I have it on good authority tat you are an unrepentant bastard just like the rest of us! 😉

Originally posted by Hand of Hecate
Joe, I know that's B$. I have it on good authority tat you are an unrepentant bastard just like the rest of us! 😉

Well yeah???? Who told you, huh????

Alright, alright....Hand of Hecate is right 😛

Originally posted by Aynat
With all the various discussions of religion and spirituality....
Do you act/not act in a particular way? Does it affect where and how you spend your money?

Leave the rhetoric and theory behind, tell me the practice.

Most importantly, my salvation.

But if you want to know about everyday life.

1. I hold no fear of death, I embrace it.
2. I embrace the tenents of my faith, help out the needy, love your enemy, love God ect.
3. I am at piece.

Now had I to lose my faith, I would probably still adhere to many (perhaps all) of my moral beliefs. They are ingrained in my life, much like many Christian values (forgiveness) is engrained in many athiests lives that live amongst Christians.

A scientific theory exists that man invents religion to ease his mind about his mortality. Had I to lose my faith, I would probably be more anxious about growing old and dying.

pc

Originally posted by pcaspian
Originally posted by Aynat
[b]With all the various discussions of religion and spirituality....
Do you act/not act in a particular way? Does it affect where and how you spend your money?

Leave the rhetoric and theory behind, t ...[text shortened]... ould probably be more anxious about growing old and dying.

pc

[/b]I am an athiest, yet i hold no fear of death either. It seems likely (not certain though) that after I die, there will be no more me, so I shan't feel any pain or suffering - what is there to fear?

I think the reason that many Christian moral beliefs are ingrained on our society as a whole is in part because of the history of Christianity. Mostly, though, I think it's because the ones that coincide are the ones that are simply human moral beliefs - ie not killing/harming others, not stealing etc.

As for how what I believe (or rather, don't believe) affects my life, well, I have Sundays free 😛. That's a serious note really btw. I don't feel the need to perform any of the silly rituals involved with religion; going to church, praying etc, nor do I feel any guilt for missing any of them.
I don't feel beholden to a particular way of thinking, I can be flexible in my beliefs, if someone provides me with a convincing enough argument, I can change my mind on spiritual matters, something I think those who are bogged down by a particular belief find difficult.

In practice I believe Atheism has a great deal of impact on my day to day life. It does not make me fear death, but it does drive me to do and see as much as possible before that death comes as I am sure there is nothing afterwards. It makes me shout at people on the TV a lot 🙂 It is actually sometimes a difficult position to hold. Most of my firends have either not dealt with the questions and as such hold a sort of quasi belief in god retained from childhood, or have rejected christianity but still hold other supernatural beliefs which colour their logic. Discussing matters of philosophy is always hard with them because of this. One of my friends is still a christian of sorts and we argue incessantly, I do not enjoy this and hope one day he will change his mind (the irony of this position is not lost on me 🙂). I will not buy products which have a religious connection, nor will I get married in church or have my children baptised. I do not like any blurring of the line between the church and the state, nor the opinion that people are morally defunct if they are not christian. I also have no belief in any supernatural occurence. It annoys me when people act out of such a position without first addressing the questions of their faith. All of these things crop up at different times in the course of a day.

As I don't believe in very much (except for a few moral principles and implicit ways of thinking), I don't tend to take life very seriously. While most individual actions are carried out to perform some larger task, and thus they have a higher purpose of sorts, it's hard to give life itself a great importance. So I thought to myself: what has a kind of meaning in itself, without serving some higher goal? The only answer I could think of was art, and indeed I do tend to see my life as if it were a film or a novel. Even if there is no deeper significance, it is possible to marvel at the beauty and intricacies of life, just as you can enjoy a work of art without knowing anything about why the artist made it the way he/she did.

So I suppose my beliefs mean that (in my lucid moments) I see life as I would a film, except that it's one I participate in. It's a bit hard to fathom how this affects my actions, but the film American Beauty seems to communicate the overall idea rather well. I suppose the effect is mostly emotional - it means that if something bad happens, I might get less upset about it, because I can see the beauty of it, or how it fits into the general plot, or that it's actually quite humorous when viewed from a distance. It also means I'm less likely to start arguing with people, because arguments between angry people tend to be ugly.

Spending habits? I tend to think of buying things as means to an end, so I try to buy products that are cheap and do what I want them to do, but I suppose if I found something really intriguing I might part with money in order to examine it more closely.