{47} Skeptic’s Inspirational: an introduction
Years ago I bought a daily devotional book of positive messages. Doesn’t matter which one, they are all very similar, whether based on the bible or a specific person’s teachings: 365 individual quotes/reflections/statements to help uplift and inspire.
As an atheist, though, I found that such things missed the mark more often than not. I could not “feel God’s love” or be comforted by angels looking after me. No judgment against those who can; I’m saying simply that I am not one of those people.
But there aren’t similar things in the skeptic world. For one thing there is a lot of hostility to anything that implies any kind of spiritual life. For another, the majority of skeptics/atheists/agnostics are de-converted and are not comfortable with things (such as a “daily devotional”) that hark back to their lives in religion.
Still, I felt there was a need out there. I mean, ~I~ needed it, surely someone else did too? So I roughed out an idea to create a “daily inspirational” that would be a secular take on the daily devotional, consisting of three elements for every entry:
- Quote (to introduce the theme)
- Commentary (to delve into the theme and provide insight to think about)
- Affirmation (something that readers can repeat or meditate on)
I’ve dropped this project and come back to it several times over the years. I did blog posts on my blog for a while but that got no traction so I gave up on that. Based on feedback, I recently created a Facebook page for it, and my plan is to post meme-like images daily.
The drafts I have now seem a little cluttered with all three elements on them, so I’m trying to decide if I should post the affirmations separately…affirmations are not things that appeal to a lot of skeptics, despite current study in neuroscience showing that they are beneficial. It’s an option.
Eventually this might be a good app, not that I know how to build an app. It’s something to think about, though. First, though, is getting the images and posts figured out…
