Questions about Religion and Spirituality

Just to say, I am an anarchist, I am very against organised religion, and all that good stuff. I also, however, am VERY spiritual. I read Tarot cards, and am currently working on developing my personal psychic abilities that I believe we all process. What I am curious about, is your own take on spirituality. What do you think about personal, non-organized, spiritual practices?
I had a mad half hour once (in the mid eighties) where I took to reading Tarot cards, I think I wanted a hobby and I was too clumsy for pottery. [Bollocks! You used it is a very successful way of luring people into your boudoir! - Ed]. I even did a course called Window to the Soul, it was full of really creepy men who said things like "Every woman is a potential sleeping beauty." The teacher was full of inner calm but had terrible halitosis so his inner calm must have gone off. People kept telling me how good I was at reading tarot cards and how accurate my predictions were, which was weird since I didn't really know what I was doing and couldn't even see the end of my own nose. I came to the conclusion that the place to look for answers wasn't in a pack of cards or in mysticism but in really trying to understand the world, its economics, its history, its people. A lot of people who look for answers in Eastern philosophy and in mysticism have never made any effort to understand Western philosophy and the values of modernism. I think it's easier to believe in hocus pocus than it is to put some real effort in and work out why things are the way they are and what they could be. The other problem I have with mysticism is that it's usually all about the self. I hate the idea of karma, people taking the blame for being born poor and into terrible circumstances. People are born poor because other people are determined to stay rich and powerful, there's no great mystery, it's called capitalism and the pursuit of power.

Were you raised an atheist, or were you born into a religion and dropped out? If so, why?
I [Boff that is] was raised as a Mormon in Burnley, heartland of Fundamental bible-bashing (see 'Oranges Are not The Only Fruit' by Jeannette Winterson), it took me most of my teenage years to extricate myself from religion. I never 'got' religion, though i tried - read the Bible, prayed, went to Sunday School, etc. Nothing happened. No 'still, small voice', no answers to prayers. Nothing. And then this mental void began to be filled with real philosophical/logical problems which religion was skirting around (existence of God, Creationism, etc) and by political and social problems which religion was part of (male dominance, racism, war, capitalism etc). And eventually the whole bundle imploded sometime when I discovered the Bonzo Dog Band, sex, and truancy. All my huge family are still Mormons, we all get along fine.

Do you see any benefit in religion/spirituality at all? I'm not religious or anything, just curious. Also, people want meaning in their lives, they look for meaning in everything they do. But say there is no meaning? Suppose there's no reason or 'truth' or 'rightness' in anything? It's all meaningless. Or suppose EVERYTHING matters? Which would be worse?
No, I don't see any benefit in religion, other than the wearing of priest's robes makes paedophiles easier to identify. As for spirituality, what exactly is it? I've never trusted anybody who claimed to be spiritual. It's like claiming to have a sixth sense which nobody else can see. When people say they're spiritual what they usually mean is: "I'm dead special me! Unlike the rest of you who are a couple of steps down the evolutionary ladder." The problem with religion or the state for that matter is that it involves putting faith in something above yourself. They take power and responsibility away from ordinary people and undervalue people's worth. In lefty circles there's a tendency to dismiss Western religions as bollocks whilst believing any old clap-trap as long as it's Eastern. I'm sick of hearing how spiritual and fantastic Buddhism is; tell it to the slave labourers in Burma. They live under a Buddhist system and its not doing them much good. As for the second part of your question... the tendency to claim everything is meaningless or of equal importance seems part of the disease of post-modernism. I hate post-modernism because it's just an excuse to be self-serving and not care about anything. I think it's worth taking part in the struggle to be human. Calling it searching for truth sounds a bit pompous. Human beings are endlessly inventive and capable of fantastic things, seems sensible to put our efforts in to creating something better than we have now. We don't believe in fate. We've got capitalism, religion and military regimes murdering and depriving people, these aren't unchangeable, immutable ever to be with us systems. We don't have to accept them. Questions like "Does nothing matter? Does everything matter?" have to come second to "why are vast portions of the earth's population starving in the midst of plenty."

My question is this: if you believe in god/divine power/creation force on any level, how would you define it and how do you see it manifest itself in the world around you (if you believe it does)?
We don't believe in god on any level. Religion is a socially acceptable version of heroin, it's a prop which fucks people up and over. And as Blaise Pascal so aptly put it: "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. "How can Anarchy be achieved when it is impossible to vote for it?" It's not votes which change the world but people. Real democracy isn't putting an x in a box and allowing someone else to make decisions which affect your life, it's discussing things with your friends, neighbours, comrades and colleagues and making decisions about things which you're personally involved in. Anarchism isn't something that happens after some mythical revolution has taken place. It's the struggle to be human in an environment which encourages the inhuman.