I want to have an afterlife. I study science, and sometimes I feel like there are things humans won’t get in my lifetime. So I like to think that I can continue on learning even after I die.
Religion is a scam. Anyone with critical thinking can see that BUT if you understand that and choose to follow because it makes you feel better it’s ok!
I don’t
Because I can at least see spaghetti without DMT.
I spiritually disbelieve in everyone’s religion
I just have a deeply rooted appreciation for pasta.
I do not really know. I was not raised in a practicing family, and my country is very secular.
Philosophically, I’m agnostic. I’m not convinced either by arguments for or against the existence of God. I think a being which could exist outside time and space is not approachable by our reason.
But I can’t stay neutral, the question is too important. And I feel the presence of God in my life. This feeling came first, and when I tried to understand it, I went to the culturally nearest place of worship, and it was Protestantism, and I felt at home. I read the Bible, not as a theology manual, but as the story of people who try to understand the presence of God; sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong, but their quest is mine, and theirs inspires mine.
I feel the same way reading the Bible. Even as early as Genesis I was like damn Abraham I already don’t understand why you tried to pimp out your sister-wife ONCE so why did you KEEP DOING IT? Somebody recently commented that they find the Bible boring and I was like you need to find a modern translation because if you can even vaguely understand what’s actually going on that shit is WILD. Turns out humans have always been crazy AF and personally I actually find that kinda comforting. Makes a lot of modern shit seem less unmanageable. Another great example is the whole Onan thing. It’s wild that somebody decided to make it about masturbation when if you really get down to it it’s a story about a dude who thinks he’s being slick by obeying the letter of the current law to (literally) screw his widowed sister in law out of her rightful property and THAT story is TIMELESS.
I have personally experienced librarians and they have helped me when in need.
Yeah sorry, there’s nothing.
But we should behave towards each other as we’d like to be treated. Otherwise it doesn’t work.
Now, there’s this unsolved issue of people harming all of us…
I rejected christianity sometime as an early teen.
I don’t remember my full reasoning but I did not like the idea of getting up early Sunday morning to do the church stuff.
It never got replaced by anything.
I find it funny that there was a time where atheists on the internet were just called edge lords (or still, idk) for not believing in god and voicing that opinion. I remember being like 8 years old and thinking: wow that is stupid, why would anyone believe that. That was pre internet, i didn’t have to be influenced by other edge lords and i didn’t read any books about it. But somehow it’s in certain parts of the world weirder to come to that conclusion than believing in the all mighty super being.
Same. My mother actually sent me to Sunday school and I even did 1st grade at a Catholic School. I too remembering how silly it all seemed even at that age. Luckily the school closed down after that first year or she would have kept sending me there. I always wonder if the indoctrination would have taken if I’d have to keep going year after year.
During that time period it wasn’t so much being an atheist that made someone an edge lord, but in how they went about communicating that to others.
I’ve read through the Bible cover to cover three times. Amplified, NIV, and New King James with a copy of Strongs.
I’m an atheist now.
I understand the reaction. The Bible is sold by a lot of churches as “the word of God”, and if it’s the case, God is a lying asshole. But nowhere in the Bible it is written that the Bible is the word of God; according to the Bible the word of God is Jesus-Christ so… it may not be the right approach according to the Bible itself.
I love the Bible, I read it (almost) every day, I use it as a guide in my material and spiritual lives, I studied the story of its interpretation in the university, I even thought about making that my speciality. Yet I don’t understand how someone could believe in biblical inerrancy. It’s very clearly a human work, written by error-prone normal humans. I believe that God spoke to its redactors, but it’s still a human work. And ours is (according to me) to listen to the voice of God through the human form; and that’s why we have the Church, as it’s not something one can do alone.
I like your view.
Though I don’t do church anymore, either they worship the current incarnation of the antichrist or they’re lead by weak leaders who aren’t willing or capable to do what it takes to be a great leader in my experience.
We tried a few liberal / LGBTQ lead churches and I just couldn’t continue to participate. My wife kept going longer than I did but she hasn’t gone in a few years.
What made you an atheist?
The Bible is pretty fallible when looking at it objectively IMO. But the nail in the coffin was contrasting what the Bible asks of us vs what Christianity does. The tyrannical cheeto is as close to the antichrist as we’ve seen and they’re all gaga for him as an example. But I’ve been disillusioned since Obama’s first election. The terrible and false things “the church” and soon to be former church friends said about him was next level bullshit. Yet when I highlighted that the Bible clearly says the worst relationship we have with man is our relationship with Christ landed in def ears.
I think they are saying reading those books are the reason.
Not op, but for me it was the fact that the supposedly ineffable word of God turned out to be pretty effible
It wasn’t the first step towards losing faith, or even the last, but it was pretty troubling to a young me
I don’t. Not Buddhist anymore
Buddhism looked appealing to me until I actually looked into it (I come from a Western culture)
What didn’t you like?
Cosmology, mainly. To someone who’s barely familiar with Buddhism, it may seem like it’s all Buddha’s wisdom with some Samsara magic sprinkled on top of it. Really though, it’s every bit as bonkers and reflective of the ancient perceptions of the world as any other way of mystical thought.
As for teachings, I honestly didn’t go to deep into that, but I visited a local temple and the way a monk told about them made me feel I visited some sort of lnternet life coach with some mystical stuff on top.
The sun is real.
How can you definitively prove it, though?
With Solipsism.
Unless you are the Sun (in which case, cute~), it doesn’t seem to help
My religion isn’t really based on belief, just practice. And I do the practices because they make me feel better and more connected.
I used to, because my parents did and I went to church and all that.
But then I started to actually think about it.
Now I don’t believe in anything supernatural.
There are parts of nature we don’t understand (yet) but I don’t think there’s any ‘higher power’ that created the universe, and especially not earth or humankind specifically.
