Prove or Disprove the Tooth Fairy

[andrewgprv]

Being raised in a very religous home and community I can testify that I have had many "spiritual" experiences. These experiences led me to believe that the church I was a part of was true, and that God was reafirming that in my heart, but being the inquisitive person I am I never stopped testing my faith. The more I tested the more didn't make sense, not to mention the cultish feeling I got from my church. Any outside veiws were forbiden anything that might disprove the church was Satan's doing. But I still had that revelation of spirit.

Then one day at school we were learning about different cultures so we did some yoga and some meditation. While meditating I felt peacefull relaxed and............what was this........I felt spiritual, just like I do when I go to church, or pray, or read the scriptures etc..... Then I got to thinking maybe these feeling arn't exclusive to my religon, I observed when I had these feeling. They happened all the time, In nature, at a good movie, with my family etc..... My whole life my church taught me that these feelings were the Holy Ghost reafirming my church's truthfullness, but in fact these feelings were apart of me just like anger, or happiness etc.... I had controll over these feelings not some mythical ghost.

As one who has been deeply religous and then gone atheist I will say atheism has brought me the most growth and fufillment. As an atheist I make my own decisions I decide what is best for me, and this requires maturity to make the right choices. When I was religous all the choices were made for me, my life was planned out for me. I never had to make my own choice it was as if I was a child and the church my parents telling me what it is I should do.

It's a scary thought to be self-suffiecent to be responsable for your own life and destiny.

 

[floppa21]

Thanks Andrew. I almost brought up the 'spiritual feeling' but decided not to... Not something I could explain well, but I felt like you did. It was an emotional and mental thing, but I never attributed it to God.

 

[floppa21]

@mrogtreturns - You said I did not explain why people need something to believe in. IMO, people do not NEED anything to believe in. It is something which provides ease to them.

 

[smalltalk]

Originally posted by thestonesfan
Simple. I stayed up all night with a tooth under my pillow and busted my mom when she came in to put a shiny new penny under my pillow.

Unfortunately, she kept the penny. That was twice my monthly allowance at the time.

Ouch. Your story should be included in an holy canon. Do not test on your Gods!

So it's rather easy to disprove the tooth fairy.

But you can't disprove this:

I have a dragon in my garage. But he's a shy feller and turns invisible when other people than me show up.

 

[Mrogreturns]

Originally posted by andrewgprv
Being raised in a very religous home and community I can testify that I have had many "spiritual" experiences. These experiences led me to believe that the church I was a part of was true, and that God was reafirming that in my heart, but being the inquisitive person I am I never stopped testing my faith. The more I tested the more didn't make sense, not to mention the cultish feeling I got from my church. Any outside veiws were forbiden anything that might disprove the church was Satan's doing. But I still had that revelation of spirit.

Then one day at school we were learning about different cultures so we did some yoga and some meditation. While meditating I felt peacefull relaxed and............what was this........I felt spiritual, just like I do when I go to church, or pray, or read the scriptures etc..... Then I got to thinking maybe these feeling arn't exclusive to my religon, I observed when I had these feeling. They happened all the time, In nature, at a good movie, with my family etc..... My whole life my church taught me that these feelings were the Holy Ghost reafirming my church's truthfullness, but in fact these feelings were apart of me just like anger, or happiness etc.... I had controll over these feelings not some mythical ghost.

As one who has been deeply religous and then gone atheist I will say atheism has brought me the most growth and fufillment. As an atheist I make my own decisions I decide what is best for me, and this requires maturity to make the right choices. When I was religous all the choices were made for me, my life was planned out for me. I never had to make my own choice it was as if I was a child and the church my parents telling me what it is I should do.

It's a scary thought to be self-suffiecent to be responsable for your own life and destiny.

I have no religious background but I also practise meditation. So my personal experience of "spitituality" is really based solely on medatative practices.
It seems quite possible to me that expreines like have been involved in the origen of spiritual / religious practice / thought. However, we don't yet know enough about the neurobiology to be sure that meditative and religious expreiences are generated by the same mechanisms.

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

You know nobody's actually defined what spirituality is. When I say "I feel happy" we all understand what I mean, but what about if I say "I feel religious" or "I feel close to God?"

Come to think of it maybe we all feel different emotions and just give them the same names because their causes and our reactions are all the same.

What if we all saw different colors and just named them the same?

I find discussions like these sink into the deadly swamp of semantics

 

[Leha]

I fink Toof Fairy doefn't ekfift .

 

[floppa21]

Originally posted by Pontiuth Pilate
You know nobody's actually defined what spirituality is. When I say "I feel happy" we all understand what I mean, but what about if I say "I feel religious" or "I feel close to God?"

Come to think of it maybe we all feel different emotions and just give them the same names because their causes and our reactions are all the same.

Here's an attempt.

A deep and intense feeling, almost like when you realize you're in love. Has some sense of wonder to it, some well-being... An 'enlightened' feeling for lack of better wording, but that is accurate. Doesn't exactly take your breath away, but it's close. Just an open awareness.

Eh?

S'how it was for me, but I feel that some outside influences helped it along. :shrug:

 

[Perfection]

Floppa, did you ever stop and think that you really are the tooth fairy?

 

[floppa21]

Originally posted by Perfection
Floppa, did you ever stop and think that you really are the tooth fairy?

 

[Perfection]

Good, just checking!

 

[metalhead]

I had sex with the tooth fairy once. But since you've all indicated who the tooth fairy really is, that's pretty disgusting

 

[floppa21]

Originally posted by metalhead
I had sex with the tooth fairy once. But since you've all indicated who the tooth fairy really is, that's pretty disgusting

 

[Perfection]

Sheesh floppa, take an anger management class.

 

[floppa21]

It's meant to be funny! Touchy touchy...

 

[Perfection]

Well, you hurt my feelings.

 

[floppa21]

Bah, you have no feelings for you have attained perfection.

 

[Perfection]

Bah! You can't understand Perfection for you aren't Perfect, only people of at least psuedo-perfect standings can understand me, and only to a limited degree. I have feelings, but you would understand them.

 

[Hygro]

andrew, why would you turn atheist if you felt spiritual outside of church?

Floppa, that picture is funny enough to become my new desktop

 

[Mrogreturns]

Originally posted by Pontiuth Pilate
You know nobody's actually defined what spirituality is. When I say "I feel happy" we all understand what I mean, but what about if I say "I feel religious" or "I feel close to God?"

At present its a matter of shared experience, we have all been happy so we know we are talking about the same thing. In time the definitions will be more precise and make reference to neurological function at the level of specifc circuits and neurotransmitter systems.

Originally posted by Pontiuth Pilate

Come to think of it maybe we all feel different emotions and just give them the same names because their causes and our reactions are all the same.

What if we all saw different colors and just named them the same?

This situation would be indistingushable from one where we all experience exactly the same colour and name them the same. What's your point?