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.
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I'm a Christian. I'm in a weird state where i'm trying to figure out where my faith sits and trying to find a new congregation I am comfortable with, since there's so much bad stuff coming from Christians nowadays.
We ended up in a reconciling UMC congregation, which is a big change from the fundie stuff we grew up with. Our congregation has been protested by evangelicals so I think it is doing something right.
No, but I used to be far more derisive of religion than I am now. My wife is Christian and speaks about how she finds God in the woods, the lakes, and the natural world around her, and I have come to view God less as a specific person or all-knowing entity and more as an embodied collection of feelings and thoughts that people have regarding justice, truth, and love. This helps me reconcile many kinds of spiritual beliefs with my own understanding of the universe as garnered by mathematical processes and the Earth as it is shaped by human hands.
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.
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.
I was not raised religious and never went to Church. I had a period of time where I was interested in paganism and witchcraft, and I have sort of dabbled in getting back to that, but I think it is just not clicking for me right now.
I don't know if there is a divine being that exists and if it does, is it something humans can even comprehend? I do believe in luck and karma (or at least some basic form of 'you will harvest from the seeds you plant'). I don't seriously believe in a heaven and hell, but I do like to imagine my loved ones in a sort of heaven, just hanging out together happily.
I am not especially a fan of how religions have been used as a tool to oppress other people. I suspect the cruel people who use religion as their hammer would find anything other excuse to be terrible if they couldn't use religion though.
was raised catholic, then kinda fell out at 14ish, now im more catholic than ive ever been
Interesting, what made you go back to the faith you were raised in?
it started at a retreat i went to with my religious class for a few days in the mountains. i was just in the class to keep my mom happy. on the first day, someone asked me how much i believed and i said maybe a 3 or 4 out of 10. on maybe the second day, we had adoration which i had never heard of before, but the eucharist was in a monstrance and they said jesus is present. we all sat in silence for an hour and then that was it. i didnt immediately feel different or realize what had changed, but soon after i thought to myself how my belief felt like a 9 or 10 now, and its been that way ever since. this combined with a miracle i had has solidified my beliefs.
I was born and raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools up to college. I feel very disconnected from the religion because of how it upholds discriminatory views against gender minorities. There was also a lot of fear instilled in me when I was younger and I just grew out of it eventually. It didn't make sense that I would do good just because a higher being promised salvation when I die. There well also too many hypocrites around me who would go to church religiously but never practice the teachings from the priest.
I now try to make sense of life as I see it and I still practice spirituality through Tarot. It's brought me a lot of peace but I still struggle every now and then
I am a Unitarian Universalist atheist. I have volunteered at church and go to church fairly regularly. I don't believe in some power greater than us. I don't believe we go anywhere after we die. More personally, I don't think there is any special purpose to our existence.
Yes, absolutely. Just not tied to any specific church or religion.
No
Never was spiritual. Grew up in a high demand religion, some aspects quite cultish. Left in my 20s. All my family is still trapped in it.
No. I am a person who bases beliefs on logic and reason. There is no logic or reason for religion or spirituality. I see it as a delusion based in the hopes and fears of a person, instead of reality that can be measured and quantified.
I don't begrudge others having such religious or spiritualistic beliefs, as long as it is kept within oneself. My main issues for religionists:
- Don't legislate it
- Don't have it in schools
- Don't indoctrinate children
- Keep it strictly personal.
Sadly, I will die and decompose back to the universe with millions (or billions) of people who still want (and succeed in doing so) to make laws based on their specific religious ideals and brainwash children into it.
Absolutely not. Raised in a strictly Catholic household and 12 years of Catholic education but a) none of the religious education sank in* and b) my personal experience turned me off to religion-as-an-institution entirely.
Footnote*: Religion class was typically my worst grade in school, except for 8th grade where the teacher gave me an A despite low scores on most of the tests. When I asked her why she thought I deserved an A, she said that she gave grades based on our ability to grasp the material and she thought I was doing as well as I could. I cried -- not because this meant I was doing well, but because I was given something I knew I didn't earn and I didn't even want an A in a subject I fundamentally disagreed with.
No, I'm too gay lmao.
My "spirituality" is more just driven by my experiences with living, psychedelics, art, and science. Which is to say, I see myself as the atoms which comprise me, which will and actively are becoming other lifeforms (and viruses/prions) when my homeostasis is thrown off hard enough (cell death and the big death). I feel less like a "person" and more like a meat computer. Could be because I'm autistic and dissociate a lot from trauma/undiagnosed ADHD, but like, I do like the feeling of just "existing". I feel like one of countless experiences of the universe experiencing itself. I try to do what makes me happy, (art, gardening, video games, programming) which includes helping my community and surroundings to be healthy, happy, and free, as one person can manage to make it.
I can't always meet my own standards because I'm only one person. I still try to strive to do what I can.
Is anarchism a religion? Or is it faith in the inherent interconnectedness of nature? I think all creatures are better than we (human society) give them credit for. I don't feel anthropocentrism will get us anywhere. I believe we're more than the systems that control us (capitalist megamachine, fascism, racism, sexism, colonialism, ableism, speciesism, etc.). We, creatures of the earth, are no better or worse than anything or anyone else. And these specific bodies make us able to discuss and address inequality and injustice, and try to get as close to planetwide systemic homeostasis as possible. You are me are nature are gods are the universe. We'll meet again in a different context, as different creatures, as not quite the same set of atoms. But some of what comprises "us" (myself and anyone reading this) will be there, in the future, perhaps even in the same creature. I don't think there's an "afterlife" just a different ongoing thread of "life". I'm still terrified of dying of course, I'd like to keep this "system", this "body", alive as long as possible. But I'm a bit more ok with it than I used to be. And mourning my own death after being zooted out of my mind helped a bit.
TLDR "Ego death^TM^" to sound even more like a stereotypical stoner/psychedelics user lmao.
Yes, but...it's complicated.
Baptized Christian in infancy. Not raised churchgoing. Had several direct contacts with God in my early twenties...but I was on acid at the time. Gradually developed a keen awareness that the universe is much larger than me, and that there are things out there I can't explain, and that I do still feel a divine presence at times.
These days I consider myself a Christian, but with the caveat that it's simply the faith that's most embedded in my cultural upbringing. I'm not convinced that it's necessarily better than any other way of relating to the spiritual world, but it's the one that works for me. Not churchgoing at the moment due to living in a very conservative area and not being able to find a congregation that I feel good about, but that will likely change with an upcoming move.
I grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist, but lost my faith and left the church/religion in 2012 (was born in 1989)
It literally hurts my entire being that religion has brainwashed billions of people. Generation after generation. It's sad that one brainwashed family indoctrinates their children. IMO: religion is a scourge on humanity. So many deaths in the name of one religion over another. Countless amounts of $$ stolen from those that gave cash/equivalent or slave labor.
What's more sad than religion based on thousands of years?
Seeing the insanity of cult behavior for following clearly ridiculous people like Donald Trump. The power of social media with misinformation, blatant propagada, etc....in addition to actual live news programs pushing the same inane, disgusting and pathetic shit is flabbergasting.
It may sound twisted....however, COVID, had the potential to unionize and solidify entire populations to join forces against a common enemy. I'm still in awe and disbelief as to how divided people became against the truth of science.
You know what the COVID episode demonstrated with 100% certainty?
Humanity will be extinct far sooner than people could possibly imagine from the apocalyptic level of damage caused be climate change. I truly wish people the best they can manage in the nearest future.
I used to be religious, became an atheist in my teens and now as an adult, I'm agnostic