About boyfriend visiting a quaker house?

[Celia24]

We've been together for a year. When we met and religion came up I told him I was atheist and asked his views he said he was agnostic but didn't actively believe or practice.

Last week, the topic came up again casually and he suggested he was spiritual although didn't fully commit to saying he believed in God. He also said he didn't really agree with atheism as it was too severe.

Then while in London this week he visited a quaker house in an amazing building he came across! He joked he didn't know they even still existed and mentioned 'you'd have no need for one as an atheist'.

I'll be honest, he has never told me if he was religious in any way and I feel a bit annoyed by this. I want to have children and I don't want to raise them in a faith because that isnt my belief though I respect others.

I'm not spiritual in the slightest, so I don't believe in any such notion as a human "soul".

Nobody seems to be able to provide any sort of cogent explanation as to what this supposedly is. The nearest thing to anything that makes sense sounds more to me like a description of personality, which is a product of billions on neurons in our human brains.

Some AI can do a reasonable impersonation of a human being, so much so that when questions and answers are put in text format, a lot of people really struggle to determine whether or not they are conversing with a real human being or a computer, because the AI's can also be taught to display a form of rudimentary "character" and "personality". If silicon-based computer chips can hold enough information to emulate this, then it seems perfectly logical to conclude that a far more advanced and capable carbon version, i.e., the human brain, can pull off a vastly superior version of the same thing, hence why I see nothing whatsoever that is explained by the existence of a "soul" that isn't already adequately explained by the human brain.

This is before we even get to the fact that despite humans being dissected and documented for centuries, as of yet, nobody has witnessed anything whatsoever that physiologically hints at the existence of such a thing, or where it might reside, which again suggests that all a "soul" actually is, is a case of mistaking how brain function presents itself to outsiders, i.e. personality and individuality, for something more than it actually is, and falling into the same trap religion is often guilty of, i.e. adding completely unnecessary added layers of complexity in an attempt to explain something, that just prompt further irreconcilable contradictions and require further explanations, when the universe functions perfectly well if the premise is that the matter under discussion simply does not exist in the first place.

Humans function perfectly well even if the premise is that they are just a pointless, talking bunch of semi-sentient apes, and a big squishy bag of atoms and molecules. All introducing notions like a "soul" does is needlessly complicate us and pose a whole load of irreconcilable quandaries.

I think the point is that time will tell. The fact we don't understand everything, or can't take in everything doesn't make it right or wrong. We can all have our own beliefs and theories in life, the annoyance is when we try to tell others they are categorically wrong because their beliefs don't align with my beliefs.

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Edit: seems I got lost in the quotes, and this branch was about "even if there were an afterlife, we might not be able to percieve it".

Retracing my reply

I'm going back to my original point of, you can't prove a negative. So you can't say, categorically, that there is no soul, or no god, or no afterlife. You can say you don't believe in them, or you can provide evidence for an alternative.

All of that is why I'd say I'm agnostic. I think it would be arrogant to assume that we are the highest beings, or alone in the universe or that this is all there is. There may not be anything more, but we can't prove it.

The point is the "if" then.

My point is I don't think time will tell. Science is doing an amazing job of helping us to understand things we didn't used to, we are rapidly advancing our knowledge on a daily basis. Of all the scientists and all the millions of experiments that have been done, many of them in the hope of proving god, not a single on of them has ever found any evidence of a god. There is a possibility that this god lives outside of our perception but it seems far more likely to me that it just doesn't exist and that's why we've found no trace. But we are all entitled to our beliefs and as long as they don't infringe on the rights of others, you do you.

Okay, I've only got a quarter of the way through this thread, but this seems like a monumental storm in an espresso cup, frankly. It was a quip and nothing else.

I'm agnostic. My DD is atheist. We both have enormous respect for Quakers. My mum's local Quaker meeting supported her for years while she was in a care home due to the physical effects of a stroke (her mind was inspected). She was the most difficult of people (and an alcoholic) but they were entirely non-judgemental, and an enormous support, not just to her, but to my sibling and me. I have not yet met a Quaker who I didn't admire.

So big shout out to any Quakers on this thread!

I've explored, enjoyed and admired Catholic and Protestant churches, Stonehenge and Avebury, synagogues and mosques, including one that was built originally as a church in Istanbul. Love the architecture, atmosphere, history, artifacts, culture.

I've never caught religion, either.

What are you afraid of?

They're Christians

I almost think the existence of God or not is irrelevant. Either God exists or Man makes God over and over again because of an intrinsic human need to make sense of the world and have some connection, just in order to survive. The belonging to a group ( and a group not restricted by class, money or race) doing good for others, having a place to sit and reflect and having someone to unburden our problems on is invaluable for human mental health, and it's easily contained in one package, at its best. At its worst, of course, they do terrible things, but it's naive to think no wars would occur without religion. Religion is basically tribalism, as are wars. They would occur eith or without religion.

No, many are but equally many aren't. I attend Meeting, I'm agnostic as are others.

Well if you want to be very literal about that which is “immaterial” then Love fits your definition, does that mean that it does not exist? How does one evidence the existence of love? We just know it does, the existence of love is just the tacit knowledge of humanity. It’s an abstract concept, difficult or impossible to exhaustively define, but widely understood and accepted nonetheless, it certainly cannot be proven. I think the concept of a Soul would tick the same boxes really.

Same.

I think many people can distinguish between admiration of different parts of religions and not wanting to follow them.

No, not at all. I don't have a faith. But we've some longstanding friends of the family who are Quakers and I interface with a Quaker meeting house in a professional capacity. They appear to me to be a very easy-going, open-minded group of people; tolerant, reflective and with a strong commitment to working for good in their communities. They also genuinely seem to relish silence and worship as tending a quiet, personal relationship with God. I'm from a meditative non-dualist tradition so this resonates with me, I suppose.

Love is an emotion, a function of our brain, it is not immaterial we can describe it we know it releases endorphins and dilates the pupils, all material, tangible things nothing like the soul concept. But if the soul is like an emotion then as the brain dies with us so does the soul.

Have finally come back to this thread after work! It's certainly taken off.

I'm now just enjoying the conversation.

I think as others have said moving in together has been stressful and this is a symptom of a problem.

I think there's several conversations going on now, plus of course there's bound to be the odd interjection from someone who hasn't RTFT or even all of your posts.

@Celia24 thanks for coming back. Can you please clarify if you are the poster on another thread as asked by @PeppyAquaPoet ? Are you the one with a partner who belittles you, is a bully? Because that changes a lot of things, a lot of the advice that most of us would give

Our souls are what give us our unique human dignity. They are the essence of our humanity, without which and when ignored leads to grave evil. God is love. And science is a wonderful tool - but its only instrumental. Science can build a bomb, but it can't tell us if/when/where we should use a bomb. Science cannot provide those answers, we have tried to use science for these purposes to develop ethical frameworks but it has only produced, broadly speaking two systems which are often at odds with one another. And we tend to select whichever best justifies what our intuitive moral senses tell us.

TLDR: we need God, we are heading for disaster without him. Although the metaphysics might be too much for our disenchanted brains to apprehend.

He's not allowed to make a joke/sarcy comment? You say you respect others with faith, is that everyone except him?

I think you are overthinking

my parents brought me up with no faith. As a kid I went to church with school and we went to the occasional xmas mass with family. I went through a phase of exploring religion but realised I just don’t have faith.

I have brought my kids up in the same way and they too have gone through phases where they wanted to explore religion but now as teenagers they both acknowledge they don’t have faith

however, if they did then I would support them in what they wanted to do - as individuals it is up to them and if they genuinely felt a faith then so be it.

Agnostics can attend any church. So can atheists.

Faith is personal. You can't dictate whethet or not your future children will have faith or not. That's their choice, not yours.

I’d suggest he runs a mile from you tbh

Support him on his journey, like he must support you on yours. Do you want him to choose between you and this other thing that moves him?