1) Too small a role. I love having daily and weekly things to do with both large and small groups of those who share my core values. I just haven\u2019t invented enough yet, and am not around others who share my desire.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t allow myself to go through the motions of the rituals of the religions to which I once lay claim, because I don\u2019t like the idea of saying words that I don\u2019t mean or going through steps meant to symbolically reinforce ideas with which I disagree. Also, I fear that allowing myself to feel sated by performing existing rituals will breed laziness, and I want to remain restless until I\u2019ve created more ritual around my currently held beliefs.<\/p>\n
V nz n aba-gurvfg jub jnf envfrq n Erpbafgehpgvbavfg Wrj, vairfgvtngrq Zbezbavfz, naq orpnzr n cenpgvpvat Puevfgvna seb bar naq n unys lrnef orsber orpbzvat pbaivaprq gung gur ovoyr jnf abg qvivaryl vafcverq naq gura jrag ba gb orpbzr pbaivaprq njnl sebz gur abgvba bs gurer yvxryl orvat n perngbe.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
2) I order the same coffee at the same caf\u00e9 every morning and greet the barista by name. I go to my classes on a consistent schedule, do homework over an afternoon snack at yet another caf\u00e9, and schedule the rest of my night around the family dinner. I go to the stadium on Sunday while my family goes to church, get all my energy out, and start all over again. My whole life is a ritual, and that\u2019s how I like it right now. I\u2019m a schedule kind of person.<\/p>\n
V nz n 20-lrne-byq Begubqbk Puevfgvna jub erpragyl pbairegrq sebz Pngubyvpvfz, fb V\u2019ir tbg n ovg bs n zvkrq-hc oenva gurbybtvpnyyl. Gur Puevfgvna cneg vf cerggl fbyvq gubhtu. \ud83d\ude09<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
3) I\u2019ve always loved routines, but I think that\u2019s not quite what \u201critual\u201d means. I take \u201critual\u201d to refer to events that are especially significant for a given community, and create an altered sense of the passage of time. For example, at a baseball game, you become a member of the crowd, and together experience time as governed not by physics, but by the division into nine innings with various activities in the breaks between.<\/p>\n
The idea of such rituals has often been important to me, but the actual practice of them, not so much. I loved attending baseball games as a kid, but now, though I enjoy the game itself, the rest feels like an exercise in nostalgia. I\u2019m too self-conscious, perhaps, to actually enjoy cheering when everyone else cheers. I\u2019ve also always liked the idea of rites of passage, and of parties as symbolic gatherings of the entire community; but I\u2019ve never been to a graduation ceremony that wasn\u2019t terribly boring, and I\u2019m way too self-conscious to actually enjoy parties (unless I get so drunk I begin asking people to pose me math problems).<\/p>\n
This may be because (though I do have friends!) I don\u2019t feel enough like a member of any community to actually appreciate any community\u2019s rituals. Or it may be that the kind of community I\u2019m a member of is the kind that, for whatever reason, can\u2019t have rituals. I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n
N obea-a-envfrq Ebzna Pngubyvp jub nggraqrq n Pngubyvp yvoreny negf havirefvgl, V\u2019z abj trggvat n CuQ (sebz n frphyne fpubby) va yvgrengher.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
4) Almost none, and I like it that way. I appreciate tradition (doing the same things at holidays) and ceremony (marriage, for example, though I prefer more genuine and human than overly formal there), but I dislike ritual. People invoking powers that I don\u2019t share a belief in makes it hard to enjoy the human connection that is probably why we\u2019re there in the first place.<\/p>\n
Envfrq nf n urnil-qhgl Puevfgnqrycuvna (na bofpher frpg, Jvxvcrqvn vf cerggl npphengr ba gur fhowrpg) ohg erwrpgrq vg nf na nqhyg, naq abj pbafvqre zlfrys n uhznavfg\/ngurvfg. Ntr 35, znyr, yvir va Cbegynaq, BE.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
5) There are certainly things that get repeated each day \u2014 hugging my daughter when I leave her at the daycare, etc. \u2014 but I don\u2019t know how many of them I\u2019d call a \u201critual\u201d \u2014 everything changes, and when things change I learn to live with it.<\/p>\n
qnqql, ivfhny rssrpgf negvfg, cubgbtencul ohss, ngurvfg<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
6) I like to shake people\u2019s hands. If you define a ritual as a seemingly arbitrary series of actions done before a certain event (which I do) then I think a lot of things I do in my life have a certain ritual to them. I squash my tea bag three times; I play in the top right corner when playing black at Go (Weiqi). I consider this a ritual, and I do this because it\u2019s practical and gives a certain rhythm to life, so to speak.<\/p>\n
But if you do in fact mean \u201critual\u201d in a more religious sense, then I\u2019ve attended quite a few funerals and even a couple of baptisms. However, I don\u2019t consider this to be a \u201cphilosophically optimal\u201d part of my life.<\/p>\n
Pngubyvp. V rawbl ernqvat, pbzchgref naq cynlvat gnoyrgbc tnzrf.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
7) Ritual is important for things that should stay the same. I always wake up at 6:30, and take a shower, brush my teeth, etc. This is a ritual and I never will change it because I never will need to, unless something drastic happens. I like it to remain this way unless there is reasonable need for a change.<\/p>\n
V nz n engvbany grrantre jub vf vagrerfgrq va zngu naq fpvrapr. V nz grpuavpnyyl na rk-gurvfg nygubhtu V nz abg fher vs V rire ernyyl oryvrirq va tbq.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Go on and make your guesses!<\/strong><\/a> \u00a0Which of these were written in earnest, and which were someone\u2019s best approximation of how someone across the religious divide would answer?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is part of the 2015 Ideological Turing Test series, where Christians and non-Christians test how well they understand one another. \u00a0 In this second round, non-Christians (mostly atheists) answer the prompts honestly, and Christians try to answer them as they expect atheists to. \u00a0Your job is to see if you can spot the difference. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":11369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[241],"class_list":["post-11373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ideologicalturingtest","tag-christian-turing-answers-2015"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"turing](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/84\/2015\/04\/turing-mask-atheist.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n