From the Archives:

When I experience good music, or art, or prose, I have a yearning to connect with the artist.

And yet, I am connected to them, as close as if they were with me.

That's all connection can be, yearning. Even in bed drenched with the sweat of the one who you're penetrating, that desperation of connectedness is still just that, yearning.

#spirituality #secularSpirituality #exmo #exmormon #exvangelical

The central thesis in my scripture is that trauma = sin. Sin is not necessarily something you *do* but something that happens to you.

Both sin and trauma:

1. Have consequences.
2. Separate us from god, transcendence, nature.
3. Separate us from each other.
4. Block progress.
5. Cause or greatly risk harm to someone else or ourselves.
6. Limit free agency.
7. Keep us from “coming home.”
8. Prevent blessings and happiness.
9. Block us from the free-flowing vibe of the Spirit.
10. Self-perpetuate.
11. Are passed down from generation to generation.

The only definition of sin that doesn't parallel with trauma is that "Sin is anything that goes against God's commands."

If we can prevent/heal trauma, we can prevent/heal sin.

#ScriptureWriting #exmo #exmormon #philosophy #religion #theology #SecularSpirituality #SpeculativeTheology

Perhaps one day god said to godself, "Am I omnipotent? Can I do all things? Can I create a rock I cannot lift? Am I so powerful that I could best even myself?"

On that day, god decided to test this idea, and split godself into an illion separate creatures with separate awarenesses, and placed them all in a limited realm where they each could try to best the other in a 22 billion-year-old contest of wills.

Reality is god trying to outdo godself.

#ScriptureWriting #Philosophy #theology #SecularSpirituality

If a consistent spirit world exists and has a tangible effect on material life forms—for instance, if praying to the right god increased your chances of survival even by 20%—nature would have selected for beings capable of sensing and manipulating that world. Thus there would be consistent reports of how that world functions by those with powers. We might expect that not everyone would have these powers, but of those who do, they’d return with similar stories, miracles, and descriptions of what it all means, across all cultures.

There is evidence that people experience largely inconsistent things that cannot be explained. That implies that these are either psychological rather than phenomenological events, OR that a spirit world does exist, it’s just not consistent (and therefore not so important that you guess right).

This is my present belief. It’s one of the two. And if psychological, that’s important! That’s why I call myself a spiritual atheist. #SecularSpirituality

I find this rock song to be deeply spiritual in a very Carl Sagan kind of way. "Hello, my name is human, and I came down from the stars." #Music #SecularSpirituality #NowListening

https://open.spotify.com/track/3VYgUNGdcQwfjDukoYkFWf?si=4baf8b569c05442f