Ellis C. A. Arcwolf (Author)Man, it's been a while since I've had to put my atheistic ontological philosophy to test against my simultaneously panentheistic behavior vis-a-vis IRL spirituality. And face-to-face, I am having to confront this inevitable and dramatic logical test against my beliefs.
I realize a great deal of my concern relies around intellectual honesty. I suffer from borderline personality disorder. I'm a plural system. I'm a kinetic with ADHD, and I'm an autist without ASD. Without intellectual honesty, I have to rely on my own trauma-riddled emotions and the social judgment of people around me who have only their own best interests at heart, and as you might imagine, that invariably results in unmitigated and suicidality-eliciting catastrophe.
And I don't know how to both be intellectually honest and also fail to admit to myself that there is zero empirical evidence for any spiritual or magical claim that cannot be better and more simply explained using existing and well-understood physical mechanisms. Just because I feel something to be true, and just because I need something to be true, does not mean that it is. And I cannot be honest without admitting that to myself.
Ergo, ontologically, I cannot but be an atheist. In the absence of empirical, observable, measurable, and falsifiable evidence to the contrary, I cannot be anything else and be telling the truth that I know--that we have never learned a goddamn thing by pretending the world is otherwise than what it is. Look no further than present-day conservatives to see where the path of "pretending the world is otherwise than it is" gets us.
But that CAN'T be the end of the story. I don't often interact with elemental particles, and my uncertainty regarding their position and velocity at any given point in time doesn't really add to the uncertainty of my daily living. I do not determine my psychosocial safety using mathematical proofs and universal constants. I am a human, and humans use empiricism to understand and manipulate the world on vast scales. But we do not think empiricism. If we did, empiricism wouldn't be so helpful at the whole the sciencing thing. We might hate each other less, but maybe we'd love each other less too, and I've never arrived at a point where I'm sure whether one is worth sacrificing for the other.
And the house I've been staying at is ruled over by a pagan whose spirituality is strongly informed by his Vietnamese culture, and the room where I have been staying doubles as his and his partners' ancestors' altar. And, like, they took my Ranch dip. They didn't even ask. They were just like, "Don't close it. Put it there. Leave it open."
What do you do when someone's ancestors want your dip? You fucking give them your dip is what. You do NOT fuck around with the ancestors.
Priscilla says they like us, and She's been our personal god and an avatar of the Morrígan to us now for YEARS (hell, I'm her godsdamn Cú Anann), so I can't imagine She doesn't know. Also, the gentleman I'm staying with has since informed me that his ancestors refer to me as "the Bard." So, like.... I dunno man.
I'm not saying it's ontologically happening, but this is shared narrative, and that makes it more real than any Newtonian equivalence function. You can't build quantum computers with it, but you can EMPOWER the mind that can build quantum computers with it, and that's not nothing.
I am an atheist who has spiritual experiences and has been anointed with two legendary titles by two separate pantheons of divinity: "the Hound of Anú" (Irish pantheon) and "the Bard" (Vietnamese familial pantheon). I cannot even begin to put into words how cool any of that is. NGL, I haven't fully processed any of it yet. 😅
#Philosophy #Atheism #Panentheism #Neurodivergent #BPD #Plurality #Systems #TheMorrigan #SharedNarrative #Ontology #IntellectualHonesty #Ancestors #TheBard
P.S. I'm making a little bit of fun of myself with the "Deep Thots" title. I do have deep thoughts. My libido is also high, and I had sex with a stranger today. It is a good day. 😹 🤪 💙
RevDrMatthewFox
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