Dreamviews community belief?

[Iwon]

Hey! I just got a question! Do the dreamviews community believe in an higher power or are you agnostic/atheists? If you have and belief of an higher power then please what do you believe in? I myself am an Atheist, though I was some what christian when I was younger (I prayed to god not knowing what an "god" really was) This is just to get too know DV a bit more. I suggest if it gets to an argument that we keep it calm and informative more than just an atheist calling an christian stupid or the other way around. I am an non believer just because if god does exist and cares about us he's ways of doing things is not (to me atlest) acceptable, and I just can't really grip that some super natural being is somewhere just watching us. I know that a higher power might not be a god or a being even. Note that I don't really believe in the big bang theory to an 100%. But what's your thoughts on this? Believer or not, maybe in between?

[Scionox]

As far as religion goes i am atheist, but after i have got into lucid dreaming and read some stuff, i have got some personal beliefs and guesses on what the waking world is, still nothing to do with any kind of 'god' though.

[Original Poster]

There is no community belief. There are atheists, agnostics, spiritualists, buddhists, christians, muslims, jews, wiccans, satanists, I'm sure there's even a scientologist or two lurking about. The two predominant beliefs appear to be atheism/agnosticism and spiritualist transcendentalism. The community is split pretty evenly between those that, for example, believe out of body experiences are purely a mental sensation and those that believe astral projection is truly possible. More dogmatic religions such as Christianity also hold a good population here but the themes of the conversation matter for them tend to revolve around whether or not lucid dreaming is religiously sanctified while for the atheist/spiritualist dichotomy the conversations focus more on the intricacies of perception, the mind and the human experience itself.

[Zoth]

I'm an agnostic atheist. But yeah, like original Poster said, we have people from many many belief systems.

[Arra]

What Original said seems mostly true, although I haven`t seen a poll or anything and am just going from observation. It seems that something between 60-80% are atheists, while the rest are split between Christians and people who believe in some unspecified god. Of the atheists, there are a small subset who have spiritual beliefs. They usually hang out in Beyond Dreaming or the Inner Sanctum. In those forums you`ll find like 95% spiritual believers. If you ignore those two forums, the whole forum appears to be almost completely atheistic. I`m not sure why the population of atheists here is so dense. Age may be one explanation, since people on this forum tend to be young. Or maybe it`s the lucid dreaming subject itself. Anyone interested enough in LDing to sign up for a forum, has probably done some research. Maybe the mindset involved in that is similar to the mindset it takes for someone to become atheistic.

[Original Poster]

I would disagree with that sentiment, I do not believe 60-80% are atheist. I believe you are presuming that anyone who speaks somewhat rationally must necessarily be an atheist. I believe people on the forum are more open minded, generally, than to go so far as to denounce the possibility of anything more than material reality altogether. But you even reveal the discrepancy in our opinions (or at least definitions of the word atheist) when you say that there are a subset of atheists with spiritual beliefs. In reality there is a far reaching nuance between the two camps. While there's certainly a small, vocal faction of active members that stubbornly, even cynically refuse to entertain possibilities outside the contemporary scientific paradigm's accepted understanding of reality, that does not mean that every person who treats transcendental ideas skeptically is an atheist. As I run through the active members in Off-Topic, I can list more open minded members than closed minded members. There are about as many members in the strong atheist polarity as in the moonbat polarity.

[Marvo]

We are all black pansexual atheists.

[JoannaB]

I am an open minded Christian. And I wound like to caution you against lumping all Christians or all atheists together, and making sweeping generalizations. Just because I am a Christian does not mean that my main or only interest in lucid dreaming is whether it is sanctified by God: frankly religion has very little to do with why I pursue lucid dreaming, and my mental health and reducing stress and having fun are way more important. Just because I am Christian does not mean that I do not care about discussions on perception. Yes, my Christian faith and morality certainly influence both my waking and my dream lives, but that is not all there is to me - I am not only a Christian, I am also college educated, a parent, a person who has lived in multiple cultures, a woman, and more. Just because I have faith does not mean that I cannot be rational - now rationality is not always desirable in my opinion, and that has more to do with the fact that I am a person who places a higher value on feelings than pure reason, but there are times when I do value reason of course, and I very much prefer the scientific approach to lucid dreaming like in Stephen LaBerge books to a paranormal approach like Carlos Castanada. Being open minded I believe I can learn from atheists and Buddhists and people who believe in paranormal beyond dreaming stuff - just because I do not agree with someone on everything does not mean I cannot learn something from them and I believe that different belief systems have some parts of truth to them, no major belief system is completely wrong and neither is any of them completely right. Being a Christian I have faith that Christianity has enough right to guide me though this life and the afterlife, but being an open minded person I realize that if I only communicated with Christians and only considered their ideas, my mind and spirit would be considerably poorer. I am also one of the few people on this forum who are both into dream interpretation and into lucid dreaming it seems to me, which I consider unfortunate because I think both can be powerful tools.

[Original Poster]

I'm into both but I don't frequent dream interpretation anymore because interpreting someone's dream is a lot of work that I don't feel receives enough appreciation. I did it for a little while but I'm more than capable of interpreting my dreams on my own. I'm mostly just bored with the on-topic section though. I haven't seen an original thread in that section for like 5 years. However, it is the very balance of beliefs which draws me to off-topic. I think the collection of minds that frequent this forum is extremely conducive to thought, though not everyone's opinion is so easily respected and there's a handful of irritating trolls and crazy people spouting nonsense, I still get a kick out of what the majority of posters have to say. Out of every forum I frequent, I frequent this one the most because it has some of the best interaction of ideas I've seen on the web. In spite of the moderators (-_^)

[Arra]

Ugh this turned out long. Original Poster, I've noticed that the last six or so posts I've seen from you are approximately the same length. Is that a coincidence? I would disagree with that sentiment, I do not believe 60-80% are atheist. I believe you are presuming that anyone who speaks somewhat rationally must necessarily be an atheist. You are probably right about this. I really have no way of knowing whether most people, even those whose usernames I recognize and who I feel that I know, are religious or not. Unless they actually choose to talk about it, which most of them don't. And yeah, to me someone who is rational is probably an atheist. Perhaps that's an irrational bias itself. It definitely doesn't always turn out to be true. Just yesterday, a good friend I've known for over a year made some mention of his passed-away dog looking after his mom (who passed away a while ago), and it surprised me. And my mind's response was kind of funny. I can tell I have a bias because instead of thinking "I guess rational people can be religious" my mind instead leans more toward "I guess that guy isn't as rational as I thought." I guess it's just hard for me to imagine that someone who isn't completely delusional might believe in God, since for years I was obsessed with atheism, arguments for religion and against it, due to having a religious boyfriend whose devotion really bothered me. And after looking into it so much it just seems ridiculous that anyone might still believe in a god. But I suppose not everyone has thought about it as much; a lot of people don't even have much of a desire to know the truth when it comes to beliefs that will make them happy and can never be proven wrong. In reality there is a far reaching nuance between the two camps. While there's certainly a small, vocal faction of active members that stubbornly, even cynically refuse to entertain possibilities outside the contemporary scientific paradigm's accepted understanding of reality, that does not mean that every person who treats transcendental ideas skeptically is an atheist. As I run through the active members in Off-Topic, I can list more open minded members than closed minded members. There are about as many members in the strong atheist polarity as in the moonbat polarity. When I say atheist, I mean agnostic atheist under some people's definitions. I strive to be open-minded but realistic. Open-mindedness doesn't mean having to accept every claim as equally likely. I'm pretty sure you agree with this but I'm mentioning it since it seems you may be implying that atheists aren't open-minded, suggesting you consider all atheists to be strong atheists. I believe people on the forum are more open minded, generally, than to go so far as to denounce the possibility of anything more than material reality altogether. But you even reveal the discrepancy in our opinions (or at least definitions of the word atheist) when you say that there are a subset of atheists with spiritual beliefs. I don't mean to argue but am wondering, do you consider someone who has a spiritual belief that doesn't involve a god (like belief in some universal consciousness or that the world have some objective purpose or something) to be a theist? I'd consider such a person to be part of that subset of atheists who have spiritual beliefs. As I understand the definition, a theist is someone who believes in a god and an atheist is someone who isn't a theist.

[Woodstock]

I'm agnostic. I`m not sure why the population of atheists here is so dense. Age may be one explanation, since people on this forum tend to be young. Or maybe it`s the lucid dreaming subject itself. Anyone interested enough in LDing to sign up for a forum, has probably done some research. Maybe the mindset involved in that is similar to the mindset it takes for someone to become atheistic. I think you have to be open minded to even believe that lucid dreaming is possible, and most people still don't really care enough to spend that much time and effort for it. Most of the people who would be interested in it are interested in neurology or psychology, and generally Christians (not all, but most) don't seem to like science much. I've talked to a couple Christians about lucid dreaming. Apparently it's satanic

[JoannaB]

Ok for the purposes of further clarification, I am Episcopalian. The reason why I say this is that I would be shocked if you found any Episcopalian who consider lucid dreaming to be Satanic or distrusting science. These may be the beliefs of some Christians, but not all Christians are alike. In fact I would venture to say that there may be some atheists I would find more common grounds with than with some fundamentalist Christians. Fundamentalists in my mind can be found in all belief systems, including among atheists - those who believe that atheism is the only way and try to convert others to their belief in no God to me have more in common than they realize with fundamentalist Christians who are equally closed minded just on the other side of the coin. Christianity just like every belief system has moderates as well. We believe in God and in science, lucid dreaming has absolutely no effect of shaking our faith nor does our faith reject lucid dreaming, for Christians such as myself. I know that some people bunch Episcopalians and Baptists both under the Christian label and expect us both to spew off about fire and brimstone, and try to convert others, etc. Not all Christians are alike. And frankly I cannot agree with the idea that Christians cannot be rational, nor with the idea that we remain Christians because we have not thought about it enough! I have thought about it plenty, and I have used a combination of reason, emotions, and faith. I believe that God gave humans free will, and thus atheists are free to not believe in him. I am not going to judge an atheist for not believing, and will not tell anyone that they are going to hell. I would appreciate the reciprocal curtesy of not being dismissed as an irrational idiot.

[Original Poster]

In answer to Dianeva's question, I don't think the connotation of atheist disables it from remaining the dichotomous counter-part of the word theist. Etymologically speaking they would be, but in reality the usage of them has changed. I find most people that label themselves atheist or even just skeptical are often very clingy to the current cultural understanding of reality. While I'm willing to allow these thinkers to have the word atheist, I still retain that skepticism implies doubt in what is commonly believed, too, and not just doubt in the far-fetched. But this is really just semantics. To speak more accurately, there are a group of people on this website that are unwilling to entertain possibility when it contradicts their current model of reality. They do not want to challenge their model of reality because they've managed to cling to something that makes sense, and so they simply judge and troll all ideas outside this narrow scope of possibility which they erroneously call being rational. But this group is just as small as this forum's riddle speaking astronauts that left reason behind long ago. The majority are neither opposed to questioning their beliefs nor opposed to thinking logically.

[Iwon]

So no one misunderstands me I did not mean this is a question of a community belief, it was more of an way to know what typ of crowd hangs here and also to get to know you guys a bit more. Which is what this post now has done, as I see it it's a majority of Agnostics and Atheists. That's cool, but just because Lucid dreaming is kinda of an mind, spirit and body type of thing I really thought that this community would be predominantly Christian, I guess I was wrong. Nor did I make this post to point some one/group out, It was just for entertainment really.

[JoannaB]

I wonder whether there are other lucid dreaming communities with very different compositions. Online forums I think tend to become self selective over time. People who are not comfortable with getting their beliefs questioned may go elsewhere. Religion is not the only divide of course then there is politics, education level, economic class. To some extent people hang with people they are more comfortable hanging with, and then there is the moderation style. I would say that the moderators here are fairly laisez faire free speach who seldom interfere at least compared to another forum I was at, but that means that someone who is not comfortable having their beliefs questioned and would rather be protected by like-minded censorship will likely not last long here. When I first came here I had the sense that there were quite a few hippies here, but that could have been due to the sharp contrast to an online forum where I came from which had strict puritanical censorship which I had somehow tolerated for almost a year and finally realized how much I could not stand that moderation style. It was on a forum that was not about dreams. However, from comments I had seen other forums such as ld4all for example which are about dreams have a very different character to them, and I know that sometimes some people leave a forum and find another where they are more comfortable. Personally I am usually quite comfortable here - yes, sometimes I feel like people who put way more value on pure reason than me may attack me and other times I may question the sanity of some beyond dreaming ideas, but I prefer that to living in a bird cage of censorship. I appreciate the fact that people here do not get censored or banned for having a different point of view and asking questions that are non-trivial.

[Zoth]

way to know what typ of crowd hangs here I certainly don't think you can know what type of crowd hangs here by asking us our system of belief. It would practically be the same as asking who prefers fish to meat: you're merely touching in a tiny aspect of ourselves that (at least personally) doesn't completely define us.

[AURON]

Moved to R/S

[Arra]

I was going to mention ld4all. I can't really judge it well since I haven't spent much time there, but it does seem to have a more spiritual/religious undertone. What I like about DV is that it doesn't try to put much of a spin on anything. It's visually generic with a nice dreaming background image, a nice normal white background and black text. A lot of different people get involved in this forum: insane, extremely well-educated, old and young, delusional people, legitimate trolls (haven't seen greenhavoc for a while actually), both women and men. The 'mood' of the forum changes frequently, because its character isn't created by the forum itself but by the people in it. This is a rare quality that I've seen in a few other groups before. There is a sense of purpose and unity, so it lives on, and remains the same yet different as people come and go. One thing a lot of people seem to share is that they have something quirky about their personalities. There are few bland people here. Everyone is original in an interesting way, and there seem to be a high number of smart, deep-thinking, antisocial 'loners'. This might be another reason everyone seemes to get along so well.

[JoannaB]

Dianeva, I think you got something there. we are the forum for eccentrics - people who are boring and unimaginative go elsewhere, right?

[Woodstock]

Everyone is original in an interesting way, and there seem to be a high number of smart, deep-thinking, antisocial 'loners'. This might be another reason everyone seemes to get along so well. I think everyone here can be considered an "antisocial loner" (especially me ). This is a forum about dreaming...