Growing Through Challenge - What Is A Religious Atheist?

              ISN'T THIS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS?

Is this a REALITY found almost everywhere in the world? POSSIBLY!!!

                                        EXPLAIN?

My goal here is not to be judgmental of others, but simply to give you some FACTS and ask you some HARD QUESTIONS upon which you may ponder as much or as little as you would like.

I have been in churches all around the U.S. as well as churches, synagogues, and mosques in countries abroad. In all too many cases I fear that I have witnessed the same phenomenon... people who go through a variety of rituals, claiming to "Worship God" in their sacred place... But probably all too many of those "worshipers" will not give God another thought until the next time they return to that place!!!

People who have a god they only think of, seek, or find in a certain building, trouble me that they may not have found the real Creator at all.

Others say they believe in God, but don't seem to find any time to contemplate the magnitude of the nature of such a Being, or the implications of such a belief to their daily life and decisions. I'm skeptical of a god who never seems to have any part in one's real world living!

There are also lots of people whose religion seems to be confined to "Their Thoughts and Prayers" being with people in need.

                    WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN???

Is it just a nice sounding "catch-phrase" that many of us may use when confronting fellow-humans in an awkward situation of difficult human circumstance?
     1) Do they really follow-through with that promise?
     2) Who do they pray to?
     3) What do they say?
     4) Do they really expect any sort of answer?

           AN ANCIENT DANGER WITH A MODERN TWIST

On the other hand, there is a great surge today of a nebulous form of "SPIRITUALISM" that is really a very old "religion"... yes a religious notion that has been on the off-and-on-again fringes of interest for thousands of years! And for thousands of years, though it has gone under many names and disguises, it has really had only one true name...

                                      PANTHEISM

This is really the NON-PERSONAL god of nature... sort of like "The Force" in the STAR WARS movies. "Everything is God and God is Everything!"   Yes, it comes to us again today in fresh, glitzy packaging promoted by best-selling authors and TV personalities... but if you read or hear any of the following...

               ASK PROBING QUESTION IF YOU HEAR...

We all have the "spark of divinity" in us and we just need to fan the flame and listen for the "Universal Divine Consciousness" that is within us all.

The giving of "human or theistic attributes" to objects of nature, for example "MOTHER EARTH".

Philosophies espousing ideas about worship that involve just going out into nature and worshiping the beauty of the trees, mountains, waterfalls, or the grandeur of the stars and galaxies.

If there is not really a SUPREME BEING who is the CREATOR of all things... well then, all this doesn't matter at all. But if there really is a PERSONAL GOD who claims to be your HEAVENLY FATHER... then all of this does matter more than I can even imagine.   The truth about the ultimate answer deserves much more sincere investigation than all too many seem to give a subject of such supreme importance!

                                     CONCLUSION

I began this article by questioning if there could be such a thing as a "Religious Atheist"? I personally don't like labels and think they often hinder rather than help understanding. Perhaps you could come up with a better descriptor for the kinds of philosophic views I have just written about.