Thursday 28 June 2012

If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club

God is a concept/By which we measure/Our pain” – John Lennon

I’m an atheist, but I’m sort of drawn to religion, even though I fight it. I’m not sure why as I’m not necessarily looking for answers. I suppose what I’m after is to obtain a peace with myself.

They call me The Seeker/I’ve been searching low and high/I won’t get to get what I’m after/Till the day I die” - The Who

Some of my earliest searching led me to read about Buddhism. I knew I didn’t want anything to do with ‘god botherers’ and Buddhism seemed to offer a religion that sort of made sense. I say sort of because I have one really big problem with Buddhism and that’s reincarnation. I don’t believe in it. For me gods, reincarnation and time don’t exist; only the here and now.

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog I used to attend Quaker meeting for worship. I did so for five years which was pretty good for me but for a number of reasons I couldn’t sustain it and never felt able to apply for membership.

I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member". Groucho Marx

I think this is the problem I don’t really want to join a religious organisation but I want to partake in some of their practices and thinking. Perhaps there’s an online community that I could dip into?


2 comments:

  1. ..interesting post PG

    for myself, I take a little bit of that which I need out of lots of religions. To wholly deny, is to be as blinkered as wholly believing. My most rewarding way to look at anything is sideways and so that's a big no no on the blinkers..

    I can get on a spiritual level totally communing with nature...

    The very act by which our species procreate is ritualistic at a subconscious level and so whilst the rituals of man made religions may appear ridiculous and nonsensical, the rituals of nature are inherent.

    My father used to tell us the answers to everything are to be found in nature if we look long and hard enough.

    Also as an add, to share nature with a crowd dilutes the connection, so I know what people mean when they take themselves off to be alone with their gods...Never to be found in hypocritical temples, full of people insuring themselves against what they perceive as hell and damnation.

    On a lighter note..I've seen many a person getting off their spirituals on hops ;-p


    PJ

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  2. If you only believe in the "Here & Now" and "If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club", then maybe you used to go to the Deeply Vale free festival on the moors ourside Bury in Lancashire in the late 1970's?
    "Here & Now" was the name of a band who played there every year (together with Steve Hillage) and one of their numbers featured the words "If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club" in the chorus. I do not know the name of the track. I wish I did, and I haven't heard it or them since. If anybody out there can tell me where I can get hold of a copy, I'd be really grateful to know.
    steve.dallimore@btopenworld.com

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