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Shroomism said:
The idea isn't to wear a label, it is to get the full earthly experience, because we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

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Very true, and well said! All human beings expirience the same things i.e. eat, sleep, breath, live ect... We also get have an appitite (generally speaking) for social interaction. In order to facilitate this social interaction we need a language. We form syllables with our mouth and characters with our hands to communicate.  Because people are grouped together geographically, they develope their own dialects, yet all languages describe pretty much the same things: the weather, our health, our feelings for and against each other ect. ect...

The point: In a manner of speaking, a religion is a language that describes the more mysterious and transcendental aspects of life. Although there are different languages/religions, they pretty much describe the same things. Perhaps my poll should've been titled:
"What religion do you speak (most fluently)?"

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I don't think a spiritual approach to life can be encompassed in belief or dogma, or any other linguistic structure.

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Especially not in the linguistic structure shown below.



I myself chose 'buddhism' because that's where I get my main inspiration, although technically I am without religion.

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Huxley describes how he came to originate the term 'agnostic' as follows:

When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure that they had attained a certain "gnosis" -- had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion. [...]

So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic". It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. [Quoted in "Encylopaedia of Religion and Ethics", 1908, edited by James Hastings MA DD]

Huxley was delighted to find that the name "agnostic" stuck; he proceeded to expand upon what he meant by it.

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, 'Try all things, hold fast by that which is good'; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.

The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will vary according to individual knowledge and capacity, and according to the general condition of science. That which is unproved today may be proved, by the help of new discoveries, tomorrow. The only negative fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to have the mind always open to conviction. [" Agnosticism", 1889]

That it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can provide evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts and in my opinion, is all that is essential to agnosticism. ["Agnosticism and Christianity", 1889]

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# empirical agnosticism (aka open agnosticism, weak agnosticism, soft agnosticism)-the view that the question of the existence of gods is knowable but the individual has not seen enough evidence or there is evenly-weighted evidence on both sides of the question of the existence of God or gods.

# closed agnosticism (aka strict agnosticism, strong agnosticism, hard agnosticism)-the view that the question of the existence of God or gods is unknowable by nature or that human beings are ill-equipped to judge the evidence

# ignosticsm-(aka apatheism)-the view that the question of the existence of God or gods is meaningless because it has no verifiable consequences

# model agnosticism - the view that philosophical and metaphysical questions are not ultimately verifiable, but that a model of malleable assumption should be built upon rational thought. Note that this branch of agnosticism differs from others in that it does not focus upon the question of God's existence.

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"What's a God?

Personally I heap together everything of all time and call the sum of that God. That is theistic perhaps. But in my view God is not a seperate entity that creates and decides, but rather *IS* everything. That would be atheistic because I speak of no God in the usual sense.

If you take the sum of the Anything and All, the complete Everything, then in my view the word "God" is perfectly acceptable. Because all Consciousness is a part of it, it has Total Consciousness. Because all minds are part of it, it holds Total Knowledge.

Because it IS the Everything, you and everything surrounding you are nothing but a part of it. Science sees all sorts of "natural laws", for instance gravity. Most of the times gravity is defied it is immediately appearant which other "natural laws" conspired to make this possible.

I think this central Dogma of both Science and Religion (that there are patterns governing the Universe) is absolute. If you throw dice, freeze the frame and somehow get all the variables, you will know how those dice will fall. You know it becomes exceedingly unlikely to throw double-six every time and you can even calculate that likelyness, and the more often you throw your dice in any way you "choose", the closer the results of your creatively rolled dice will be to this calculation.

I say this stops at nothing.
In my view there is nothing but a group of "natural laws" and that their interaction creates a given thing, say you smoking a joint.
Time itself is a NOW. You can look back on other NOWs or predict what they will bring, but this is a succession of NOWs.
Time is a NOW. A NOW can, in my view, never be a NOT NOW.
Time is indestructible, thus eternal.

Anything that is possible is governed by rules. One such rule is that there is a likeliness of 1:36 that you throw a double-six. If you got three dice a triple-six is likely to be thrown once every 216 turns (or: once every 216 NOWs)
Thus everything that is possible (among many other rules it has to answer to) has a statistic likelyness of occurring.

Since time is eternal, everything that is possible will occur to the statistic likelyness it has in the state the universe is in.
Or, quick & dirty:

Anything that can be, shall be into infinity.

Hence we got a reincarnation that answers to logic. My basic assumptions may not be yours, but logic it is.

If a universe is exclusively goverened by a dance of absolute laws, then likeliness is a human approximation of something that is totally fixed. If you know how the dice fly and all the variables that are needed, you will know whether it will be a double-six.
This by definition means, by the Scientific Dogma of Cause and Effect, that that everything is fixed.

The sum of everything at one given NOW has a statistic likelyness of occurring too, just like a double-six. Once in so many NOWs a given "snapshot of the universe" will recur, in accordance with the state of the universe that preceded it in the succession of time.
What is the pattern? Quick and dirty:

There is a great cycle that encompasses everything. That cycle consists of everything that is possible in any possible way they can happen according to the laws of the universe.

In both the "Choice" and the "Omnicyclic" Universe it is impossible to know the totality of what will happen next, because in the "Choice" universe there are incalculable variables while likewise in the "Omnicyclic" universe never know your exact location in the all-encompassing cycle.

So am I a Theist or an Atheist?
I choose to look at the stars like my caveman ancestors and go wooooooo in the wonder of it all, and I choose to call the object of this reverie "God", which is the scientifically incorrect abbreviation for "The All-Encompassing One".

Tylenol, anyone? This is but part of where I stand"

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wooooooooo!

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would be my leap of Faith of identifying the Cosmos with Deity. I wrote just the dry science bit but it leads down some pretty amazing paths wedding Science and Spirituality on an intimate level.
I just haven't touched that yet.

Uriahchase pondered my Omnicyclic Universe theory so I basically nudged him and added to "Where Do You Stand?".

The theory essay hasn't even touched the weird parts