| Subject: science fiction/fantasy and religion |
| From: David Dalton |
| Date: 30/11/2013, 05:35 |
| Newsgroups: alt.religion.angels,alt.alien.visitors,alt.alien.research,alt.paranet.ufo |
How has your reading of science fiction and fantasy
affected your religious beliefs, if at all? It is
well known that Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange
Land has influenced RDNA druids and The Church of
All Worlds, and that L. Ron Hubbard influenced
The Church of Scientology, for example.
As I have mentioned in another thread on alt.atheism,
I consider myself to be a polytheistic pantheist.
My eight main deities, which are defined on
http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/deities.html ,
are ALL, LOVE2, Universe, Galaxy, Sun, Earth,
Moon, and Human. (Unlike some Wiccans, I do
not consider all of my deities other than ALL
to be aspects of ALL, just subsets of ALL.)
Currently I believe that all eight have consciousness
and I worship them (consider them deities to me).
If I didn't believe that they had consciousness
then I would be an atheist. In that case LOVE2
would be replaced by a message of love and Human
would be replaced by humanism, and I would
just revere and study the other six without
considering them as someones. This I consider
strong atheism.
But a few years ago I decided that they had
consciousness (existed as someones) but that
I would no longer worship them, that they were
no longer deities with respect to me. This
I consider weak atheism.
However these days I do worship them and consider
myself to be in a religion of one and am not
recruiting. I am pushing some non-religious
messages but I am not pushing my deities on
anyone. Also these days I am not far from
returning to weak or strong atheism. I have
been atheist for a good chunk of my life even
though I was raised Catholic.
My religious views have been influenced more by
science fiction and fantasy than by the bible.
(But I have been influenced some by the bible,
and some say that there is evidence of alien
visitation in the bible.)
Was Spinoza an atheist?