Reply #40: I like to think of myself as a spiritual atheist

[MedleyMisty]

I think I'm totally missing the religion gene. Got more than my fair share of the self-actualization and peak experience genes, though.

And "experience" is the key word there. I'm not trying to make a factual statement about existence. I'm just happy and at peace and feeling like I'm one with the universe and minding my own business. How can I be blowing smoke at you if I'm not trying to blow any smoke? I wouldn't even know where to get weed.

I love science and reason. I read a lot of esoteric non-fiction and try to keep up with the new theories in physics and such. I don't see why one can't strive to know actual facts and also be into happiness and peace and love. It's not magical thinking, like religion. There are no gods or demons or angels or supernatural realms or anything like that. There is just existence, and personally to me it's beautiful and good and true in all its unconscious and uncaring randomness. I've never understood the desire to believe that there's some supreme being out there that cares about you and makes things happen - I don't need a point or a meaning. I just like to be.

If you don't feel like that, that's cool with me and doesn't threaten me any. We just have different genes and were nurtured differently.