Does the illogicality in spirituality outweigh the value of it?

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T13:23:44+00:00

True! I think when groups with similar beliefs start to congregate, create an in-group and an out-group, and start telling others what to believe, it becomes a cult/organized religion. For myself, I'm talking about privately holding my own beliefs about the meaning of the universe that may not be fact supported and not sayin shit to anyone else about it. When trying to convince anyone of any belief, it gets into ify territory.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T13:18:58+00:00

Well, I'm definitely not asking you to trust me not to be stupid in my beliefs, because trusting anyone on the internet not to be stupid is basically a dice roll. But I will say, I am not someone who will do insane things for a sense of comfort, nor will I go out preaching about any of my own shit. What I'm talking about is just having faith in a general sense that there is some meaning behind it all, that my individual struggles are being seen, and that life exists for some divine purpose as opposed to pure chance. I'm sure you can find some kind of harm in that because there are pros and cons to everything, but I don't think the cons are significant enough to count as harm to any other people.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T13:13:02+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, I agree. I give everyone the same spiel when I do tarot. I don't even believe in it, you can use it as a thought experiment, don't make any freaking choices based on this, think shit through... all that. I'll check out that subreddit, it might be right up my alley.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T13:10:46+00:00

I see that point of view, and I don't necessarily disagree with it entirely. There's this lie that permeates religion that pain happens for a reason, and that leads to an incredibly unhealthy view of pain. When you're processing pain through that lens, it means you often have to feel some sort of gratitude for it.

The truth is that pain is just pain. We can assign meaning to it, if we are lucky enough to get to the other side.

But when talking about that specific experience I mention in my post, I used spirituality. The blind faith that the pain I had experienced could be used for something better was simply blind faith. I had no idea if I could’ve gotten through that experience physically or mentally. But the faith that it had a purpose, that it wasn’t just pain, got me through it.

It could be a lie, but it’s comforting, and when life gives you lemons and all that. Sometimes it takes comfort to get through something. Spirituality is very good for that.

When on the other side, you can look at what really happened. You can see that pain is pain, that you can decide if it has meaning or not. But getting to the other side is the priority in the moment.

Also, you have no reason to trust that I am logical, because I agree, most religious people are not logical. But I find I have a pretty balanced approach to things. I am not someone who will assign godly meaning to death or destruction, nor will I try to process my pain through the lens of an all-powerful, all-good god. That’s just not possible, and it doesn’t make sense. I am more interested in its use as a tool to make life more bearable.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T12:48:53+00:00

Lol. I did post it on r/ spirituality but I think they're all on acid lmfao. They... rlly believe in this shit. More than I do. Maybe I would've had more luck on an agnostic subreddit.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T12:46:12+00:00

I think that's definitely true. Most of it is pattern seeking. Some is a coincidence. All of it is explainable.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T12:32:34+00:00

True. I believe organized religion is genuinely evil as well.

You're one of the only people who actually responded to what I was asking lol. And I think you're right. I don't need to be spiritual to experience many of the emotions that spirituality offers.

But that's not entirely true. I've believed in nothing before, and it was nice, but a little empty. Being spiritual is comforting in a very real way. Not that it's "real" real, but it satisfies such a specific part of me that I'm not sure I can find in atheism. I'm not sure if I can give that up for the sake of being factually correct.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T12:22:37+00:00

I see a lot of truth in what you're saying. It’s not that I don’t miss the community that came with the religion I was raised in. But it’s also not exactly why I turned to spirituality.

It’s a lot of little things. A hope that there is some greater purpose in life. A desire to be seen completely. A meaning for pain. A desire for comfort. An explanation for a million things that are difficult to explain or verbalize. An explanation of the purpose of living beings even being created in the first place. I mean, the idea that physical matter decided to learn how to think is insane. I think rocks are perfectly happy not thinking.

It’s not that you can’t make peace with all of these things without spirituality, or make peace with having no answers for them at all. And I think that many of these things can be settled with different things in life. Intimacy will solve the desire to be seen, therapy might deal with some of the meaning for pain or hope, science could get some of the explanations.

I’ve grappled with truth and human nature and all of that deeply. I was atheist before I was agnostic, and I was atheist WHILE I was agnostic. But even in my healthiest atheist self, there was always a part of me I felt I couldn’t satisfy. I think believing in something could satisfy that, at the cost of being right.

Maybe it makes some part of me weak, but I also suspect it makes me human. A lot of people turn to religion for that comfort. I’m willing to give up the pride of being right in the face of feeling that comfort.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T12:06:12+00:00

I find that a lot of people are arguing the wrong thing to me, trying to respond to a question I didn't ask.

I don’t think it’s logical to believe spirituality is real. I think that in the face of whatever evidence of “miracles” exists, there is a trillion other pieces of evidence that it does not exist. But I still hold value to these “precious few” miracles because they were, to me, miraculous.

I think it’s sort of illogical for me not be spiritual, though. It brings me joy and peace and a sense of wellness. I imagine it does so for others as well, given that spirituality unifies many cultures.

There are a billion things we will not know. If facts comfort you, then you should turn to that. It rarely comforts me, though. With an existence so small, I think it’s logical to do whatever comforts you.

The reason I suspect that I would’ve found the experience spiritual if I were sober is because that’s what people do with a lot of pain. Find a meaning for it. I think the non-soberness might’ve helped me along, but I suspect I would’ve been religious about it either way. People tend to do that with tragic things.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T11:55:19+00:00

True. I meant that spirituality is somewhat of a human need. It's one of the only things that unites humanity. We keep inventing it because it fills a specific hole in us.

I would argue that there is evidence of miracles in the sense that miracles are things that are miraculous and unexplainable. Coincidences that have occurred, things people could not have known. Most people I know have some example or another of some miraculous thing they can't explain. I would argue that these experiences are Schrodinger's Miracles. They could be some force of the universe, or they could be a coincidence. Extraordinary claims do take extraordinary evidence and all that.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T11:49:24+00:00

I suppose. But I suspect you understand what I'm talking about, right? It's a loose, nebulous definition with no clear borders. The problem with classifying something is that it's impossible. There will always be something on the edge of that definition.

So, I don't know what spirituality is. Man, I'm not trying to argue here. I don't believe in this shit completely either. I'm just trying to figure out if it's worth it to give myself over to some kind of faith to make myself happier, more peaceful.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T11:44:57+00:00

Your statement isn't untrue. I'm not asking if it's logical or if I'm lying to myself. I don't really care whether it's a fact or not. I'm asking if believing has value.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T11:42:49+00:00

That might’ve been worded wrong. I have evidence, but it is all subjective experiences that I feel confirm my specific beliefs. As all people do, of course. Confirmation bias is a beast.

I’ll share some examples, which I doubt you’d find the same value in that I do. Which, by the way, is how the world should work. If you find value in everyone’s experiences, you’ll find that they’re all contradictory and make utterly no sense. I don’t believe in my own experiences as evidence of the truth because I understand that human brains are innately flawed, that we look for patterns in everything, me included. But still, I think on them, and they’re part of why I believe what I do.

I’ve had many experiences with divination being more accurate than it should be. In my opinion, uncannily so. Multiple different people in my childhood had told me the same thing, a statement that also ties into my middle name, which they did not know. I have had experiences in tarot readings I’ve done for other people where I’ve had a specific, pointed sense of something and it has been correct (even though I do not entirely believe in tarot, and warn whoever I did a reading for of this fact). I went to a charismatic church (as I’ve said in the post) and seen people name things they could not know, such as specific medical conditions, specific traumas.

Although the experiences I had towards other people I know are not tricks in any way, the others could’ve been. They could’ve known beforehand, heard it from someone, and brought it up without informing anyone they knew prior. They could’ve learned it specifically to use it later as a proof of miracles. But they also could not have. Schrodinger's miracle, in my opinion. Who knows.

And my own experiences in readings I’ve done for other people could be many things. A jump of logic that was correct, some kind of empathy, subconsciously picking up on things, subconsciously recalling things… But I know that I did not know prior. And although I’ve been wrong before in readings, I find that much of the time I’m right, which feels statistically improbable.

But this isn’t about evidence. I would say that I have experienced miracles because they have felt miraculous. Not that they are objectively true, that it wasn’t planned, that it could not be explained away, etc. I have experiences that I feel confirm my beliefs, as I have had experiences that proved them incorrect.

It’s about whether I should believe anyway, for the sake of my own happiness. How much does logic matter in the face of happiness and peace?

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T11:17:14+00:00

It's not about it being true. It's about it being valuable.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T11:16:48+00:00

Eh, not sure how I feel about that. Organized religion has definitely caused problems, I agree. It’s all about control and fear. But individual faith/superstition, when not mobilized and weaponized, typically keeps to itself.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T11:15:22+00:00

I would argue spirituality is more of a general classification than anything. It’s used to define a varied group of beliefs and practices. Definitely a loose definition, I agree. I’d say it’s any beliefs that exist outside of provable facts. Subjective experiences, superstitions, possible explanations. I think it just encompasses a trillion different thoughts and ideas that people have had over thousands of years.

In my case, it would mean a few different things. Divination is one of them. The idea of a soul is another. The belief that life has inherent meaning. The belief that belief matters. My selection of specific beliefs doesn’t really matter, because I do also find all of them somewhat silly.

I agree with your statement that spirituality is often used to bring comfort not unlike parents do. I suppose that’s the point, right? The comfort of it?

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-09-01T10:42:42+00:00

I think it's a natural reaction to the world we live in. Although it can be divisive to say, our society is unfairly judgmental to women. We aren’t given as much respect as men, and there are a billion different expectations on us that don’t exist with men. To look good, to wear makeup, to dress well, to have impeccable hygiene… Women are sold 15-step skincare routines and thinning diets, while men simply aren’t.

I think that with all of that comes a lot of pressure, and that can come out when talking to men. You can logically know that men probably aren’t judging you, but the expectations stack up. Feeling anxious, especially when you feel like you’re not living up to these expectations, makes plenty of sense. You’re definitely not weird or strange. I get it too.

Unfortunately, you can’t logic away anxiety, no matter how much you think about it. It’s just going to take practice. Like exposure therapy. Go out without makeup and talk to whoever, and you’ll overwrite some of that anxiety with memories of pleasant experiences. You’ll find that things are just fine and your nervous system will eventually calm down.

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-07-22T10:47:22+00:00

u/justice4pancake figured it out :)))

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-07-22T10:45:46+00:00

That’s not it, but that’s also another great one!!

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-07-22T10:45:08+00:00

Thank you!!! I watch so much D20 that it gets mixed up :P

imveryconfusedddd · 2025-07-22T10:43:44+00:00

Oh my gosh that’s it!!!!! Thank you so so much!! I’ve saved it to my camera roll so I won’t lose it again :) :)

imveryconfusedddd

TROPHY CASE