My own hypocrisy

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I'm not really religious, but I still pray, and couldn't live without the feeling that I have supernatural guides even though I have no evidence they're doing anything. I don't care for religious people or discussions, yet I strongly enjoy the prospects of an afterlife existing. And finally, on that note, I have no reference to any sort of afterlife, good or bad, outside of holy scriptures, yet I'm not religious.

I'm a hypocrite, but that's the only way I can live.

I don't see anything wrong with that. Live and let live, right? If it benefits you and you're not harming anybody then that's a good thing.

There are plenty of religious or spiritual-minded people who don't like most religious/spiritual people or doctrines. Some of them are major thinkers. I wouldn't say they're hypocrites...

To be honest im the same, I could happily belive in the christian God but I refuse to, in the end I am closer to the paganic religions and happily believe in reincarnation.
One thing that has always worried me about religion is that alot of people become close-minded when they get that involved, I couldn't stand that.

It has always seemed to me that God is just a fantasy of humanity made imaginatively superpwered. It never jibed with the reality I knew. Probably most people want to live forever in one form or another. I have never seen any evidence that this is possible. There are some things in reality difficult to accept but I see no choice in the matter, no matter what I want.

The worship of extra-natural powers is partly because humans fear to die. They want to live forever just like the gods they invent.

ruveyn

How does this make you hypocritical? A hypocrite says one thing and does another. You are being honest with yourself. A hypocrite would be a militant atheist secretly going to church on Sundays.

everyone is a hypocrite. so dont feel so bad,

That's not hypocrisy, there is a difference between religious and spiritual. Religion involves rituals and obeying mandates and stuff.

In the sense that I don't particularly care for religious people, but I myself have a belief system, with just as little proof, even if it's not as nutso as theirs (but when it comes to things like this, isn't any belief in the spiritual crazy?). My point is, no matter how rational somebody might want to be, sometimes they have to self-contradict to function in life.

If Sand has his money where his mouth is, he's one of the few that doesn't have to. And he's right to an extent- I would like to live on past this life, and hopefully forever, even if I have no logical reason to believe it's possible. I'm not the biggest hypocrite out there, but I'm kind of a hypocrite in my own right.

I am not a hypocrite and I feel pretty good.

I am an equal opportunity, non-discriminating s.o.b.

ruveyn

Although there are many aspects to religious beliefs and its viewpoint on life it is probably reasonably crucial when one faces death of all those that give meaning to one's life and and death of one's self. I have seen both of my parents die, one of my sons has died, my wife died early last year and I am of an age where death cannot be too long away. It is not a matter of courage for me but just an acceptance that death is the end, there is no afterlife, I am personally insulted by the childish visions about death presented by most religions to numb the reality. In this I have no hypocrisy. There are some pains which must be confronted and accepted and there is no alleviation. That is what it means to leave one's childhood behind.

If that's how you define growing up, then most of the world is in a state of arrested development. I don't see my desire to live on after death as childish really- call it weakness, but not childishness. If you see me as being immature, so be it. But hear me out. With the way death works, I don't see the harm in hoping to live on, so long as you can live with the fact that people won't agree with you. If I continue to exist, then so be it. If not, then my praying and false hopes didn't hurt me or anyone. It's not like I'll be all disappointed that I don't exist. It's not like you can tell me "I told you so." But in a sense, these hopes are hypocritical for someone who doesn't care for religion, religious debates, (and secretly) people who are excessively religious.

Can you actually look at the violence, the brutality, the unnecessary suffering in the world and declare it mature? The belief in an afterlife devalues the very precious time of this life. The postponement of justice and acceptance of stupidity in deference to an imaginary justice after death and a thoroughly nonsensical afterlife does great harm to our lives here now and today.

Maybe so, but you do have your loveable side.

I still don't see the hypocrisy there unless you pretend to religious people that you don't believe in God.

Religious people give God a bad name because they talk about what they don't know, then form these organizations to convince themselves that they do. This is the worst kind of hypocrisy for they are the victims of their own deceit.

You are being honest in admitting that your hope is only a hope. There is nothing wrong with that. Hope is good.