Kharisym
Member
Howdy! I'm an atheist who enjoys challenging my beliefs and ideas. I try to live by the phrase, a belief unchallenged is not worth believing. To that end my life's path through religion, philosophy, and belief has been quite the chaotic path. I'm happy to admit when I don't know something, and happy to change my mind given appropriate evidence.
I grew up Christian (Church of the Brethren) ended up Wiccan, then agnostic before becoming a potato in the atheist couch. In terms of particular morals (atheism isn't very descriptive normally...) they've gone through a great deal of adjustment since I shed the theist coils. Right now I have my own religion that I developed myself: Altruanism.
I consider Altruanism to be an atheistic religion in that it doesn't assume any god or deity, and doesn't rely on the assumption on any reality outside the natural world. Altruanism is a religion, however, because it does have certain articles that can only be accepted on faith. Basically (and now we're gonna get a little cuckoo) I believe that humanity will create their own mechanism for an afterlife sometime in the distant future--we're talking generations--and by the application of time manipulation our consciousnesses can be transferred forward to it. There are three *huge* assumptions in this belief: 1) Can the mind be transferred without failing the transporter paradox? 2) Is it possible to send and receive information between the past and future (My answer to the transporter paradox requires bi-directional communication)? 3) Will a civilization exist sometime in the future willing to put the effort into making this man-made afterlife?
The answers to 1 and 2 are beyond our control, but the third is something we can exert influence on right now. For a sufficiently altruistic civilization to exist that would be interested in helping us out here in the past, we must work towards laying the foundations for it today by trying to make the world a better place. That's what it means to be Altruan.
So tl;dr: Chaotic, crazy, a bit obsessive.
I grew up Christian (Church of the Brethren) ended up Wiccan, then agnostic before becoming a potato in the atheist couch. In terms of particular morals (atheism isn't very descriptive normally...) they've gone through a great deal of adjustment since I shed the theist coils. Right now I have my own religion that I developed myself: Altruanism.
I consider Altruanism to be an atheistic religion in that it doesn't assume any god or deity, and doesn't rely on the assumption on any reality outside the natural world. Altruanism is a religion, however, because it does have certain articles that can only be accepted on faith. Basically (and now we're gonna get a little cuckoo) I believe that humanity will create their own mechanism for an afterlife sometime in the distant future--we're talking generations--and by the application of time manipulation our consciousnesses can be transferred forward to it. There are three *huge* assumptions in this belief: 1) Can the mind be transferred without failing the transporter paradox? 2) Is it possible to send and receive information between the past and future (My answer to the transporter paradox requires bi-directional communication)? 3) Will a civilization exist sometime in the future willing to put the effort into making this man-made afterlife?
The answers to 1 and 2 are beyond our control, but the third is something we can exert influence on right now. For a sufficiently altruistic civilization to exist that would be interested in helping us out here in the past, we must work towards laying the foundations for it today by trying to make the world a better place. That's what it means to be Altruan.
So tl;dr: Chaotic, crazy, a bit obsessive.