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I am atheist but I do enjoy religious spaces. There's a stillness that I like, gives you the opportunity to just be in the moment. You don't get many spaces like that for atheist folk (libraries are the closest I can think of). I sing a lot of choral music so often find myself in churches. I like the structure of a service and the ceremonial aspect, I just don't believe in the content itself.
definitely relate to this. i attend church regularly despite not being religious because my family is, and though i don’t believe in the christian god at least, i do appreciate and like the environment, community, and lessons being taught. it’s very peaceful and makes you feel like you’re part of something a bit bigger, even if that’s likely just because there’s a few hundred people at any given service.
Every religious community organisation that I have had first hand personal experience with has been involved in a myriad of verified claims of abuse Including: sexual, financial, and elder. My confidence in these institutions is now nonexistent. And I find myself misidentifying with them completely. I think I am now de facto apathetically agnostic.
No, but I also recognize that I may be wrong. To be honest, arrogant atheists bother me even more than arrogant theists.
To me, the whole point is that any answer is impossible to prove. Trying to definitively, factually state that no kind of higher power exists is irrational, and thoroughly undermines any claim of logic or reason. The stubborn, uncompromising kind of atheist frequently describes themselves as a logical, rational person, so I expect them to see this problem.
No. It took me a lot of hard effort to get here with my upbringing. I think parts of it are fine and for the most part regular people practice in ways that aren't harmful to others, but (at least in the US), the entire structure of it is deeply harmful and results in good, decent folk taking actions or supporting others who do real harm.
Hell yeah! I'm Hindu and I love it.
I loved mythology as a child and devoured every myth from every culture I could get my hands on. Later this evolved into exploration of religion. I've read religious books of many religions - Hindu epics and scriptures, Buddhist scriptures, Jain scriptures, Quran, Bible, Guru Granth Sahib, and the Avesta - I enjoyed them all, and my parents encouraged this exploration.
I ultimately came back to Hinduism because a lot of the stuff in it made sense and resonated with me, and let me adopt a mindset that works well for letting me process and ascribe meaning to the various experiences and phenomenon of life.
Hinduism is a collection of hundreds of belief-systems - a lot of which are uber chill, some literally cult-like, some polticised and weaponised for oppression, and some that are intense but harmless. You can choose what makes sense to you - I personally follow a pretty chill belief system, but it also makes me seem not serious about it.
Oooh and it is fun in the community - festivals, temples, ceremonies, and various cultural events -there are so many of these, and each of them very fun depending on the people involved in the celebration.
I'm spiritual and I guess some would say religious, though I just call it witchy. I was raised by strict parents as an evangelical Christian (Southern Baptist), but that made less and less sense as I grew older and learned more about the world around me.
I found my way to witchcraft, and working with and in nature made way more sense to me. I'm eclectic, and not very into ceremonial magic, but I do believe magic is real, and I believe we all have different paths to take in life. I currently worship Persephone, Hestia, and Loki, and I try to honor other deities where applicable. I'm studying everything I can, and love hearing about other people's experiences.
love to see a witch in this thread! i was very interested in witchcraft back when i was deconverting from christianity, as a sort of way to wrestle control over my beliefs again, but honestly haven’t touched it much in awhile. i could never really get myself to believe in any of the pagan gods, even though i really wanted to, and still would like to if i could only bring myself to have faith and believe.
tarot is the best thing i’ve taken from that time, i love it as a tool to analyze emotions and thoughts i don’t fully understand, though i don’t use it much these days. i should try and start using it again :)
may i ask what’s driven you to worship those deities in particular? and, if you had to get over a “belief” hump like i’ve failed to, what pushed you to really believe in the old gods?
Religions have been perverted into a system of manipulation and control of the masses. Granules of truth in each one keep people coming back, but in the end they are like a virus in human consciousness that is designed to control us. I really believe each person can only find real truth by turning inward and deeply exploring their own consciousness.
I disagree with this. Definitely there are many examples of organised religion being perfect case studies of the adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But there are also many ways that religious communities support each other and their wider communities, outside just providing a doctrinal "granule of truth".
Sikhism I think is most famous for this, and I feel like at least where I live whenever something bad happens in the background on the news I see Sikh communities mobilising to render assistance.
Similarly, the denomination I was brought up in (church of christ) has always been oriented, both in theory and practice, around doing community work first and debating doctrine a fairly distant second (also, each church of christ congregation is an independent entity, which I think has probably contributed to it being able to maintain its strong community-first focus over time).
Yes, very much. I think it would be impossible for me not to be religious. If I wasn't Anglican I'd be Buddhist or Baháʼí.
I'm quite drawn to the ritual aspects of religion but there's another part of me finds it all hopelessly silly.
I mean, I have beliefs, just not religious ones. The only religions that I could ever vibe with were Wicca and Discordianism, and in time I realized that was because the only forces that I could ever accept having power over me are nature and chaos.
Hail Eris!
Fnord to you my friend
Not really.
I like witchy stuff but only if its considerable to placebos. A rose quartz bracelet, for example, might not be scientifically going to attract love and good fortune---but its cute and makes me happy, so who knows, THAT might help.
If I had to choose a religion though, I'd probably go with one of those polytheist religions because ever since I was a kid and first went to a church camp, I decided that a singular "God" scares the shit out of me. I basically considered "God" too overpowered and decided that wasn't for me.
If by 'spiritual' is meant to be belief in something that is outside of our current understanding of scientific knowledge, then yes.
Obviously, the scientific fields of inquiry do not have answers to all of humanity's questions.
So, that would be the sense that I am 'spiritual'...there are things going on in the immense universe that are outside (or unknown) our collective scientific understanding.
I would go a step further and say that there are many things that science, by nature, cannot answer. For example, what consciousness is and how it arises as a phenomenon.
I think a scientists reply to that would be: the phenomenon of 'conciousness' is a result of the complex chemical reactions between clusters of highly organized matter. Science's ability to answer questions about consciousness is limited only by the precision of our tools and the sophistication of our methods, both of which will only continue to improve. The fact that we are currently limited our tools and methods, is the only reason that other less quantatative methods of understanding consciousness (like philosophy) are more effective.
It's complicated. I am not religious, and have considered myself to be an atheist for most of my life so far. I also have strong negative feelings towards most mainstream religions, because of their long-standing hate towards people like me and my loved ones. I also grew up in a Presbyterian church and honestly, fuck everything about calvinist-derived theology.
But, it is hard to shake some amount of magical thinking. And honestly, if it brings joy, and isn't harming people around you, why not? So lately I've been leaning into it a bit, in a vaguely neopagan direction. I definitely don't take any of it literally, but if a sprinkle of it helps keep me from descending into despondency, I will shrug and go with it. It isn't rational, but I am a human, not a robot.
I have also considered finding a local unitarian universalist church or something along those lines. Somewhere that is chill with me as I am. The last few years have been isolating and I think I need more community in my life to thrive.
im pretty neutral on it maybe theres a god maybe there isnt doesnt make a difference me people can believe what they want as long as its not actively harming them or others
Not even a little bit. I'm still in awe of the universe, aware of my own insignificance, and terrified yet resigned to my eventual death though!
In any organised sense, no, not really. Beyond that, maybe?
But no more than feeling a sense of belonging within the universe which we are a part of and connection with other parts of that universe, be they human, animal, plant or other.
If there is something else out there or on a higher plane of existence than us, I don't believe it is within the grasp of any human to understand it, let alone write down it's wants and desires in regards to the way we should live out lives.
I hate religion. I hate ""spirituality"" (what does that even mean?). It makes my skin crawl. I hate that people willfully delude themselves into believing things that they clearly know to not be true, on some level, and then argue wholeheartedly for their actual truthfulness. It's the most idiotic, nonsensical practice I can imagine someone engaging in. Just look at all the people in this thread searching for one that "speaks to them as if they can just pick the nature of reality out for themselves. How in the world can people do that and not make themselves crazy with cognitive dissonance?
BUT. What I do understand is that people are searching for structure, community and a sense of reverence towards... something. There have been attempts at replicating that experience sans-nonsense, but every time it's tried it's mostly ridiculed and laughed at by the sort of jackass atheists who can't even empathize with that longing. It's sad.
spirituality, as i understand it, tends to be more mindful/spiritual practices minus any typically associated religious aspects. for example, meditating and yoga would be typical examples of this, but i think spirituality can also be watching the sun rise/set, going for a walk in the woods, or taking a hot bath. anything that can help bring you to a more peaceful place of self reflection and introspection could be considered spiritual in my opinion.
how can you say that you hate that while not even knowing what it is?
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer... sets up power point
My history with religion/spirituality is all over the place.
Those of the more religious bent in my family were/are Baptists. My single working mother never made religion a super big focus for me and sis. She let us discover that part of ourselves on our own. I had issues with Southern Baptists early on as a child when one pastor pressured me about getting baptized. I kinda just ran from organized religion after that.
As I grew up, I had explored Catholicism. What I discovered was I really was drawn to the divine feminine. I was aaalll about some Mary. I flirted with Wicca, Norse Paganism, Pagan Paganism, and finally settled in as an agnostic. "Nobody knows ANYTHING", I figured.
Then, about a year and a half ago, a fella I followed on instagram was streaming his DJ program on Twitch. One of the tunes he spun was Ganesh is Fresh by MC Yogi. It was a bangin' tune! Then I remembered a Hindu mantra I had heard in a new age book store when I was a teen. It left such an impression on me that it just kind of stayed in the back of my mind. I took a chance, and looked it up on YouTube. Sure enough! There it was! Then I looked up the meaning: "A mantra of purification and seeking the oneness of God in all things"
I just sat there listening to my mantra with "new ears". Then I said "Okay. I'm on board. Let's do this." I embraced Hinduism, and honestly couldn't be happier. As I read and researched more about it, it really fit with my outlook on life, the universe, and everything. It's a seeking path that doesn't have rigid dogma. It acknowledges change, and encourages exploration and questioning. I've had to learn to drop a lot of the Western Abrahamic thinking that came along with American culture, which seemed small and kinda dark in comparison.
These days I find chanting, meditation, and kirtan to be great sources of comfort in a world gone higgledy-piggledy. I do my best to make my corner of the universe as kind and welcoming as I can. I refuse to hate, and don't wish ill on others. There's just better ways to spend my energy.
Yes, I'm Christian. I am also queer and staunchly opposed to American bible fascism. An unfortunate number of people seem to believe that these traits can't coexist in one person without hypocrisy or denial.
Myself, I enjoy how my religious beliefs and my queer identity support and bolster one another. 😁
love to see queer christian’s here! so many people, especially LGBT folks (understandably to some degree) harbour so much hate for christianity as a whole, when in my opinion it’s crazy to generalize everyone in an entire religion as “bad people.”
may i ask what denomination you follow, if it’s a specific one?
I have a complicated relationship with religion. I was raised in a very hardline and honestly kind of culty ‘born again’ environment so I have a deep-rooted distaste for conservative Christianity, but I also don’t really love the fairly shallow ‘atheism, monism, logical positivism, and physicalism’ that’s taken as the default for most people these days. I’m open-minded to spirituality but I’m cautious about taking a leap of faith directly into oncoming traffic.
No. I was raised in a secular household, and honestly, I haven't seen anything that makes me think there's a supernatural at all.
Nuh uh. "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. still feels surreal and sad for my heart.
I was raised particularly southern, like three denomination deep Protestant, (that only existed because some people argued if you should speak in tongues in church or if that would be "distracting from the lawd".) And my family participated in the activities so I was forced to attend EVERY SUNDAY AND WEDNESDAY NIGHT until I was 18.
I don't have a lot of good things to say about it. After I realized I only tried to follow it cause of where I was born (and what measure of truth is that?) I started to address each moral question as it came and settle it myself based off of morality I could stomach.
A lack of belief is easy when I've seen nothing to believe, in fact I used to feel alone in it. Eventually I realized I cannot fake it, and what reason would there be, what diety would accept it?
Agnostic atheist here. If you twisted my arm to choose something I'd make a religion out of this story [http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html]("The Egg")
Other than that, I don't have any reason to believe its anything other than nothing, non-existence after we die.
I was looking for someone who labeled themselves in both axes of religious belief: theism vs. atheism and gnosticism vs. agnosticism.
For those who don't know, the idea is very roughly that theism is the axis that defines belief in higher powers/spirituality, and gnosticism is the axis about whether the beliefs are knowable/proveable.
So, for example:
- A gnostic theist might believe in god and believe they have proof of its existence.
- An agnostic theist might believe in spirituality, but that organized religion is just based on other people's ideas about spirituality, not the divine word.
- An agnostic atheist might not believe in spirituality, but that it's impossible to prove that spirituality doesn't exist, either.
- A gnostic atheist might believe there is nothing spiritual and that the origins of all "spirituality" can be explained by anthropology, history, or human psychology, so it's all provably false.
I fall into the gnostic atheist camp, myself. A minority within a minority. ;)
Not anymore, but grew up in church.
I'm apatheistic when it comes to if there is a god and/or gods and I actively dislike all organised religion. Religion has no place in modern society and causes so much suffering. It's time has been and gone.
No, I am an atheist and do not believe in anything super natural.
I used to be a pretty staunch atheist, but had an experience earlier in life that changed my perception. I spent months trying to find a scientific explanation for what I experienced, something within the realm of physics for it to make sense, but could not. Even today I try to debunk my own experience but I know that it happened and have somebody else who can confirm it as well. I can't ignore that evidence, but I also have no way to prove it to others so I make no effort to "convert" anybody to my way of thinking. Simply explain what happened and if you believe me cool, if not, also cool. We all have our own views.
I don't know the nature of the universe, I do know that we don't know a whole lot about the universe though. To me, the atheists that claim with certainty that there is nothing beyond the veil of our reality sound just as ignorant and stubborn as the orthodox priests of any major religion though. As a science minded person, you should always try to keep an open mind.
Today I would describe myself as a scientific pantheist, I guess, if we have to put labels on things. Which is to say that I believe that what we see as the universe is synonymous with what we think of as God. That science, mathematics, physics, etc are the languages in which "God" speaks to us.
I don't, I'm an atheist. I grew up in a very strict christian household (my dad took away my yugioh cards and my Harry Potter books for being "demonic" lmao) kinda turned me off to religion.
@alyaza I was quite religious when I was very young. My parents were not too religious, but my grandma, where I would spend a huge part of my childhood, was. She never asked me to keep a lent or an advent (I don't know what it's called in English, but on the Orthodox side we have various periods of the year when we basically become vegan 😀)) We call that post - religiously it's mainly about food, but not only. You're supposed to clean yourself up in a way), but I would occasionally go to church with her, and I got the habit of crossing myself whenever I would pass next to a church (both walking or when taking the public transit).
Later when I grew up, I would find some awesome friends that gradually got me less religious, to a point where I would simply become agnostic - which was pretty much the same to this day 😁
Nope, my parents are atheists and my siblings and I were raised as same. Never went to churches or had a bible at home etc.
I've found myself surrounded by a lot of spiritual people lately and I've used it as an excuse to try and get in touch with that side of myself. It's been a very interesting experience. There's a lot of it I still don't understand but a lot of it is just nice vibes? Like I don't ascribe any meaning to the moon or when I'm born or male and female sexual energies or being actually connected to the souls of anyone else but sometimes it's nice to recognize when things are just unexplainable by conventional means and to use a common language to recognize it. To speak in soft or uncertain terms as a way to acknowledge something you can't quite put your finger on, only to have it create a wonderful connecting conversation with another human is honestly kind of nice. And it makes approaching certain subjects a little bit more accessible because it's not rigorous and scientific but more human centered and amorphous.
My parents and grandparents were but my generation (all my siblings & cousins) don't follow the church much if at all
No, not for me. My wife and I are both athiests, but she believes in spirits, some sort of afterlife where some are able to communicate with the living world (like mediums).
I'm very skeptical, and I'll reserve judgement until something can be proven.
I'm all for individual spirituality if it makes you happy and doesn't negatively influence your decision making process.
I have a problem when it makes people hurt others, or vote for those who would legislate hurting others.
I am agnostic. My personal point of view is that if there some sort of all-powerful being(s) and they want something other than "don't be a jerk" out of me, I don't care enough to put effort into impress them.
I do love learning about other people's belief systems, though, as long as they don't try to prostelytize to me.
Yup. Any higher power that can’t even be bothered to unambiguously prove their existence just isn’t worth my time.