When Spiritual belief triggers an atheist.

[PJAY]

Hey unicult members,

Firstly, sorry if this is a long post.

So I just had a long debate with a friend over my belief in magic and a conscious universe and her atheist views. Now for the record, this debate was not me trying to discredit her belief in science and strong sense of atheism. In fact, I became aware that I was now defending my own belief in the supernatural. I also explained that I don’t strictly follow any religon or even claim that magic is real, just that I’m open-minded.

Let’s call my friend Hanna. Hanna tells me that my openess to the possibility of magic bothers her, she says it sounds ignorant. She says it’s frustrating because magic is just what science hasn’t discovered yet. So she doesn’t see why I would believe in something like “Law of Attraction”. I told Hanna that I never insisted that she share my belief in god, or the after life or magic, just that I’m open-minded and don’t need her to disprove my beliefs because I, like all humans are entitled to their beliefs.

I explained that antheism and religon or spirituality should have no interference with one another. It’s only ever an issue when you impose your own views on someone else to fix their way of thinking even though their beliefs haven’t harmed anyone. She agreed. Quickly she further challenged my belief in law of attraction by saying it’s all just probability and statistics and that she would have her husband who studies statistics explain it to me.

I’m not an ignorant fool because I believe in more than just logic and physics. I asked, why would I need the explaination? How would my own beliefs inhibit me from moving forward in life?

She replies, “I dunno, I just need to be right all the time and don’t believe in god or spirits or that we have a soul, once the brain dies, we die”

Anyway this is getting long, but it begs the question “Why should you have to defend your beliefs to an atheist?” I don’t doubt Hanna is a good friend, she is. But will an atheist and spiritual person always be doomed to butt heads? Wondering what the unicult thinks.

Unibless,

PJAY

[Jeremy]

If your “openness to the possibility of magic” is considered to be “ignorant” due to magic just being “what science hasn’t discovered yet” – then every good scientist would be considered ignorant by that definition. Any good scientist should be “open to the possibility” of anything. What she is effectively saying is that you should believe a rigid structure that things are only one way because science says so. In reality to dismiss the possibility of something potentially existing is very unscientific. There is of course much science to back up the supernatural also.

But in reality, you don’t have to defend your beliefs or debate consistently over two different perspectives of anything. We can always see the wisdom in both sides because there is something to learn from both – and there is also a place in the middle where all of these things can very easily co-exist with one another when we tap into that.

I am convinced that one perspective on its own is incomplete and that it requires the understanding of both opposites to become complete in knowledge.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Jeremy.

[PJAY]

I absolutely loved this response Jeremy. I completely agree that any good scientist should be open to all possibilities because the universe is simply too expansive to disregard anything. I find myself wondering how faith in anything beyond the physical world can be seen as “ignorant” when no one can fully claim that they know the truth about the universe.

I recently spoke to someone who said that his partner believed in astrology and tarot and for him, that was a deal breaker.

I believe that there is room in this world for both perspectives to exist. There’s value in seeing the world in a logical and scientific way but there’s also so much value to religion or spirituality.

In the end, someone who only looks at the physical can find respect for someone’s belief in magic and the supernatural because often that belief is what brings so much joy.

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