It can be argued that the vast majority, if not all of us here, are grateful not to be subject to the whims and vagaries of mormonism. Sure, some of us experience some fallout, some grief, via family members still in the church. But for the most part, we're much better off being out.

Personally, I don't mind that I grew up mormon, which is probably for the best since I can't go back to change it. I consider myself a 'tribal mormon' and I always root for the LDS Missionaries when they play the JW Kingdomeers; man, that's always a great game!

As with more than a few here, I journeyed out of mormonism and then kept moving along and ended up an Agnostitheist of some sort or another. The basic point being that I don't know of, much less recognize, a deity who might be responsible for what does and doesn't happen to me in this life. In that vein, as a replacement, I preach the Bell Shaped Curve.

But it leaves me with a quandary... To whom or what might I be offering thanks when something really good happens? I feel the urge to do so, like someone/thing has given me a gift and I should say thank you. Sure, intellectually I know that it's just the Bell Shaped Curve doing it's thing, but there I am, wanting to be grateful!

Contrarily, I don't feel the urge to blame someone/thing when bad things happen; I have no problem then recognizing the grinding wheels of impartial coincidences.

Maybe my problem is that I don't consider myself special?

Thoughts, farts, taunts, anyone?

I feel mostly the same way. It may just be a little hold over from my upbringing that part of me wants to say thanks. My mom was always big on that point when I was growing up. It might be just a mental reflex that I haven't worked past yet. And still, I hate to take credit for something good happening to me, so I still feel the need to thank someone or something.

So thanks be to dumb luck, probably what the closest thing to the truth I can come up with.

I feel the same. Gratitude must be sent somewhere.

I thank the god, Serendipity. He is the errant son of Mother Nature who I thank for keeping me in flowers, and sunrises, and the occasional hooded oriole that comes to the mimosa tree.

I thank Serendipity for other things--most of which cannot be mentioned here. He does things Mother Nature just won't. Some don't even make sense. There is no warning either. Not like Mother Nature who craves attention and is constantly making the news as she laughs hysterically at the notion that gays are causing all the destruction of floods and hurricanes which she herself has perfected to an art.

Serendipity had a friend calling out of the blue to tell me about the MoF, which I went over and read a chapter and immediately realized the Mormon church was a lie leaving me with a feeling that I was floating I felt so suddenly light.

I wasn't even looking for an out but got one anyway. You gotta give thanks for that.

I apologize for repeating an earlier story, but this question of gratitude is important to me.

I have a dear friend who taught me in college. She and her husband were always actively Jewish, regularly attended services and celebrated the holidays. He was very senior in university administration; she a second-tier academic who went on to do a lot in the Jewish charitable community.

Several years after I met her, she told me that she had decided to start honoring the Jewish dietary code. Nothing had changed in her spirituality, she just wanted to commit a bit more to the religion and tradition. Which meant that we couldn't continue sharing lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant. Meanwhile she continued being the free spirit that she was. At one point she went to Israel for the first time and came back profoundly disturbed: instead of city on a hill, she saw class consciousness, internal divisions, appalling treatment of Palestinians, etc. She admitted somewhat sheepishly that at some level she knew, or should have known, that true Jewish identity should not be tied to a state but belonged more truly to the diaspora.

Anyway, a decade later her husband died. We went out to dinner soon thereafter (Italian) and she told me that she was particularly sad because she didn't believe in an afterlife. I almost choked, then regained my composure and ventured "or an interventionist deity?" "Or," she nodded, "an interventionist deity." In short, my dear friend was an atheist.

I asked why she was so committed to her religion. She said it was partly about community and family but mainly because "I need someone to say 'thank you' to."

I guess a person can assign gratitude to an abstract entity, or a pet, the Sunday News, or Kim Kardashian. The object does not matter. But the ability to feel untrammeled gratitude and the desire to recognize it are the mark of a good person. In my friend's case it motivated a lifetime of service to her family, her community, the occasional wayward student, and her housekeeper's Baptist Church.

Thank you for that lesson.

I, proudly, serve here on RfM..."to those according to their needs". yadda yadda.

Don't thank me, thank Kim!

Since it was an Italian restaurant, I would have also thanked the FSM. He who bore a cross of breadsticks and was boiled that we might live.

For the OP, we live in a friendly Universe. So the average breaks in our favor. Reality might be more magical than our modern sensibilities want to admit.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
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>
> For the OP, we live in a friendly Universe. So the
> average breaks in our favor. Reality might be more
> magical than our modern sensibilities want to
> admit.


I cannot accede to this view. You would have the universe accepting humans as pets, and being coddled when it has the time to take notice of us.

Nice one Babs. I also like to think that he (she/it?) was boiled to a nice al dente consistency to aid in the transubstantiation process. Or do we not teach that?

Not sharing lunch with you at your favorite Thai restaurant is no way to thank any deity. I wouldn't miss it for any God. Besides, you always expand my vocabulary.

Nice Post.

Lots of possible recipients for your gratitude: Fate, Miracles, DNA, Space-time, Happenstance, Fortune, Luck, or my favorite-Done&done's Serendipity.

Is it possible that we can simply be grateful?

I love Ann Druyan's quote about the death of her husband, Carl Sagan.

"When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. . . . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. . . . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. . . . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful. . . . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful."

I want an Atheist to speak at my funeral. Being grateful for what you have is big.

Luck seems to be an intrinsic feature of existence, or there would be nothing rather than something. What good is being lucky if you can’t enjoy it?

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
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> Luck seems to be an intrinsic feature of existence, or there would be nothing rather than something. What good is being lucky if you can’t enjoy it?

I always liked the theory that luck is a virus. If you're "Lucky" you can catch it. Think of all the times, had I been lucky, things would have turned out so differently. And those rich, successful, impossibly-good-looking familiies: genes? I call it luck. They have the virus.

There is an old saying--favorite of mine actually--that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. There's also dumb luck as well that is more just "chance" but I still love the other definition.

That is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.

Such a great illustration of how wonderful the much maligned atheism really is as "just being" infuses life with such richness. The appreciation and love in Druyan's words speaks volumes. My jaw is still hanging down.

Thank you, auntsukey.

Amen, Done and Done. That was beautiful and rich, AuntSukey. Thanks so much for sharing it.

Elderolddog, for me, I simply try to share the luck with others. It's really all I can do.

Devoted Exmo said

> I simply try to share the luck with
> others. It's really all I can do.

Wait, are you saying you share the luck in a "pay it forward" sort of way?

Or do you mean that you'll endlessly share with people how lucky, blessed and genealogically connected you are?

Cuz I can see a difference.

I try to do kindnesses for others. Perhaps they feel like that's luck to them. Yes, I try to "pay it forward" by giving to others. No, I don't "endlessly share with people how lucky, blessed and genealogically connected you are" because I'm none of those things.

auntsukey,

Interesting video. "Not a bit of you is gone. You're just less orderly."

I guess I DO want a physicist at my funeral!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2019 05:12PM by mel.