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 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
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.
I just don’t like having someone tell me how I should think and that’s why I was never interested in religion. :D Also seeing how religions make people behave really turned me away from them.
I’m not religious but always thought of myself as very spiritual… which I think is just living on a deeper level. I feel like I have my own custom-made religion, and I can borrow here and there from different religions if I want to. I especially like Buddhism, but I’m sure every religion must have some nice things to say. But I prefer learning about life from science, especially psychology, it seems more accurate.
But lately I became accustomed with energy healing… and it’s making me wonder about life and my belief system. I started watching the Goop Lab on Netflix, which led to me wondering if there really are people with psychic powers, then I got curious about energy healing, tried it a few times and became convinced that no, it’s not just a placebo effect and it works from a distance. But it’s also not supported by science. It’s been boggling my mind for a few months… Then I start looking at what these people believe, these healers who practice energy healing. They all believe in an afterlife, in spirit guides, crystals, etc. I never believed in all that, I always looked to science for answers. So, do I believe in all this? I wouldn’t say that (yet), but it did make me wonder. My thinking was, if there really are people with psychic powers, wouldn’t they know more about life than I do? My thinking prior to this was more along the lines of I don’t know what happens after death. But I also thought, it seems like a cold, cruel world, so there probably isn’t anything after death. And you’re just alive for a while and then it’s over.
What’s interesting is that I started contemplating the way these energy healers and psychics make sense of the world, and I decided to sort of ‘try’ it. Because I like to learn about life and experiment. And, well, it does ‘feel’ better. Much, much better. I always thought, I don’t want to be delusional and I’m one to want to get in touch with reality. But now I’m kind of enjoying this new way of thinking mostly because it feels much better. It’s comforting, reassuring, it can really change how you feel about life and how you live it. So it’s been an interesting experiment.
Then I’ve also been meditating for a long time, and now synchronicities happen much more often, they barely ever happened when I was younger. I also feel like more often I get ‘lucky’ or it seems like my intuition leads me in the right way. This also makes me wonder what that is, how does this happen?
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.
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.
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.
I used to be religious, became an atheist in my teens and now as an adult, I'm agnostic
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.
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 am, very much, not religious. My father is Catholic, my mother doesn't go into her spirituality but it's not Christian. So I was taught about different things and given the choice to believe in what makes sense to me. If there's one way to describe what feels to me like what I imagine faith to be like to someone who's religious it would be the messages of hope and of passion for discovery and learning that Carl Sagan showed. The Pale Blue Dot speech is a sermon. It inspires me to be a better person and to try and be the change in the world that I want to see. But ultimately science doesn't know everything and at some point even with it you must make assumptions and have "faith" in the process.
As far as divinity goes, I've always struggled to believe. I just don't see the extraordinary evidence that would be required for me to say "Oh, that makes a divinity-free universe impossible". And by the same token it is impossible to prove that the universe was not crafted by some all powerful being last Thursday with all our billions of years of history baked in for us to pour through. So I figure, I'll find out on my last day and until then I'll just focus on being as good a person as I can be.
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.
Hmm. On the one hand very much no, in the sense that I am a scientist, and I believe in the scientific method, and I think society should deal with facts and evidence when agreeing how to manage itself.
But on the other hand, individually, I am a creature of emotion and I feel connected to the universe, and I believe everything ebbs and flows in connection with everything else.
I don't feel the need for my scientist brain to hold that emotional part of myself to account or ransom, though. I don't need to know how it works or why it might be because it just is what it is.
But don’t you think that not everything can be proven and tested? And that science most likely doesn’t have it all figured out?
Yes Karl Popper says that science must limit itself to working on ideas that are falsifiable.
But that doesn't mean that we can just go about making life-changing decisions for ourselves or for others based on any beliefs we want and claim science has no say because those beliefs are unfalsifiable. Its the other way around: public policy must be constrained by fact and evidence even if our individual beliefs are influenced by more than that.
When Hugo Grotius was working on the law of the sea, which became one of the bases of modern international law, he imagined laws that would hold fast even in the absence of God. If we cannot do the same then we are doing no better than throwing rocks at each other for our individual betterment.
That does make perfect sense,👌for public policy at least. But as an individual I feel like I can experiment a little and decide for myself if I believe in something. I don’t have to wait for science’s approval to tell me that something actually works. And I appreciate having the freedom to do so.
To give you an example, I started practicing yoga and meditation about 20 years ago, back then it was still seen as something strange... some weird spiritual practice. Telling people about my yoga practice was more likely to make me seem like a weirdo or be labeled as New Age, which I’m not. During this time it became more and more popular and now even therapists recommend it, everyone is talking about its benefits and now science approves it. If I had waited for science to tell me that it’s a valid method, I wouldn’t have benefited from those practices as I did.
Now I recently started energy healing, and even though it seems a little crazy, even to me, I can’t deny that it works and it’s not just a placebo effect. So again, I don’t feel like waiting for science’s approval. If it works I will use it. If people think I’m crazy for believing in it I don’t care because I know that people are very judgmental and often wrong.
What is the law of the sea?
Very well said though… food for thought! ;)
Oh yes definitely do what makes you happy and heals you!
The law of the sea was an early attempt to codify and organise the customs and rules of conduct that applied in international waters. We kind of take it for granted that there is a thing called "International law" but its actually a relatively recent development and not as obvious as we might think. I mean historically most legal jurisdiction springs from some claim of right that one family has because they were once powerful enough to assert that they were destined to rule by God, for some definition of God. But no such claim exists for international waters. The national territorial claims just kind of fizzle out and become less believable the farther away from land you get. Er that was a bit of a tangent I know.
I guess that’s why we need science, people will believe anything and make up their own convenient rules… Thanks for sharing! :)
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.
I grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist, but lost my faith and left the church/religion in 2012 (was born in 1989)
I'm not entirely sure where I stand, religously. I want to believe in some sort of a god but I cannot grasp onto the idea no matter how hard I try. Whenever I try to do any sort of praying, it's like I'm just talking into darkness. As for a specific religion, I was raised nondenominational christian, but I've been drawn towards islam as of recent.
As someone who was indoctrinated into islam as a child, I cannot recommend. 0/10 stars. Or any of the abrahamic religions imo. Way too dogmatic and patriarchal. While the culture and ritual is interesting from an anthropological point of view, you'd likely have a better time hanging out with people you care about, instead of prostrating yourself to a god who thinks anyone with a uterus is subhuman.
Yeah, I can see how that could affect your point of view. While I was never really raised around religion in a strict way, I do believe that religion can be life-changing for some people and give them purpose (not to say that you can't have a life purpose/morals without religion, you absolutely can).