Belief is a funny word, and I suppose I avoid it a little because I'm used to a statement of belief being like an article of clothing, as if a person sort of has a sociological badge and stands with their hands on their hips asserting "I believe x".
That's not about actual inquiry, it's not about curiosity, it's really sociology and tribalism first and foremost in many cases. While it's not impossible that a person might go out on a fact-finding mission of this type and find one of the big five religions, or the top non-religion, fitting exactly what they need it seems like these people are more the exception than the rule.
That said I don't adhere to any particular religion, on the other hand I'm not a reductive materialist either.
Some of the philosophies that interest me: Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, Martinism, and Thelema. While the Traditionalism or Perenialism of people like Rene Guenon or Aldous Huxley are interesting I really at this point don't think there's much likelihood of a perenial religion that's somehow degraded thanks to the kali yuga, whatever that means exactly. Really its a lot more likely that most of the mystical and practical rites, mysteries, and forms of everything from folk magic to theurgy have a similar ring to them is that they're dealing with the same universe. That same level is, on one hand, the distinct flavor of the human condition. The second layer is the shape of the human nervous system and how that filters information as well as the kinds of novel experiences that can arise. Thirdly, the distinct possibility that we do live in a panpsychic universe where consciousness is everywhere. With that last bit I don't think that amounts to personal deity looking over your shoulder however - rather I'd consider that guys like Robert Bruce (the Australian author) might be onto something with their descriptions of their own experiences of exotic flora and fauna of another order or type and similarly I can't help but think back to the theurgy of Iamblicus as well as the Renaissance and even modern theurgists and magicians - those bring themselves to meet what they'd commonly call gods, goddesses, archangels, demons, etc.. which are really just larger as well as other kinds of novel appendage to a conscious universe.
To the above, I have to consider what I've heard suggested - that our universe couldn't exist if the speed of light was infinite, ie. that spacetime would fold into a single point. In that sense, considering the likelihood of a two-tone universe (both infinite speed and 186,000 miles per second existing, the former just being imperceptible for obvious reasons) we wouldn't have a lot of odd experiences as a race with exotic intelligences because we're somehow still ego-tripping on a geocentric or us-centered feeling of the universe, rather we'd get that attention just by having active cognition as perceived by conscious agencies who aren't confined to space and time as we're used to thinking of it. In that sense we could be on the grandest planet in the Goldilocks zone of the brightest blue supergiant of the most grand galaxy in the universe, or we could be on a planet the size of Mercury out in complete backwater circling a red dwarf - religious experiences and contact with other agencies of this sort would be no less likely since the need to manually catalog and research every system to realize something is there is problem distinctly our own based on our limitations.
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“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin
06 Apr 2016, 9:23 pm
