posted August 01, 2016 07:55 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by PixieJane:
I thought some people would like to learn of and/or discuss this concept:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism

Short & sweet it says any and all religion (and even human language itself) is simply too limited to accurately define a greater cosmic force (that I often describe as "God/dess"). While some (many?) are actually more agnostic, many (and I'd include myself here) are actually just skeptical of religion rather than God/dess. That's not to say that human religions can't work for people and that the various gods (symbolic manifestations within the Collective Unconscious that connects to God/dess, though that's an oversimplification for me in describing it), but that they aren't actually real in an "objective" sense, they're just the metaphors our limited minds have to resort to describing concepts beyond our ken.

To use a metaphor (as we literally don't have sufficient language to describe any God-force literally) there are many paths "up the mountain" (the mountain being God/dess), though at the same time all those paths also have twists & turns that can lead people further away from the mountain as well as toward it...and see even that metaphor is inaccurate in my view as a path can do both at the same time as the spiritual realm is, in my belief, non-Euclidean and God/dess is in everything (bad as well as good), including those walking the paths, not just the mountain. To "ascend the mountain" in my metaphor is simply to become more lucid (and atheists, self-proclaimed Satanists be they Luciferians or LaVeyan, and the like can ascend as well, though their paths aren't anywhere as beaten).

And one of the most intriguing things that happened to me was a visit from the goddess Freya that changed my life...and while I have many reasons why I believe I had this encounter, I also believe that had my Christian grandmother not prayed for me that I'd have never experienced it. And speaking of which, years later when we compared notes (and I was a full Heathen then sincerely believing in all the pagan gods, even Jehovah as one for me to avoid and not anymore special than the other gods, and had zero doubts about the reality of Freya as a literal force distinct from all other gods) and I asked her if she'd visit me in Sessrúmnir/Fólkvangr as I figured she'd have an easier time visiting my afterlife than I would hers, and she said (as best I recall), "They're the same place. You'll see your trappings and I'll see mine but we'll still be together and love each other." I LOVED that answer (even if I didn't believe it then).

ETA: I just recalled someone I used to live with who believed if God/dess existed then the said force could only be discovered and described in higher mathematics (not to be confused with Gematria or numerology), a concept I found fascinating and put into a scifi story of mine!

Anyone else want to discuss this concept?

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Your grandma was a true agnostic, from what I understand, or did I not understand?

I mean if she were asked she'd say she were Christian right? But her final comment...

"They're the same place. You'll see your trappings and I'll see mine but we'll still be together and love each other."

Or is that too much knowing to be agnostic?