and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today :>
Zen Buddhist. I grew up Christian, realized I was believing out of obligation rather than genuine conviction, but also I’m pan and Christians have made it very clear that’s not okay with them.
I was areligious for awhile. Which I use because I am still an atheist; I don’t see much evidence for gods, but that isn’t important to Buddhism.
I appreciate the Buddha’s teachings and find them incredibly helpful. I’m calmer, more focused, and over all, happier for my practice. It gives me a spiritual outlet that doesn’t make me feel “dirty” the way Christianity did.
There are aspects to Buddhism that I have to take on faith even though I am otherwise a skeptical individual. But ultimately, those things don’t change how I would have had to live my life. And I believe that a true practitioner needs a balance of logic anf faith: too much logic, and you kill your faith. Too much faith and you wind up in a cult. You need enough logic to stay grounded, and enough faith to believe. But you have to acknowledge that you can rarely prove the things you take on faith and because of that, there will always be non-belivers, and that has to be okay.
Satanist.
Raised Mormon, was a Mormon missionary. Had a nervous breakdown, and religious leaders said that I must be sinning, and needed to pray more, read my scriptures more, and repent. But… What sin? And how was I supposed to pray/study more when I had already dedicated two years of my life to preaching? E.g., there’s 24 hours in the day, and I’m already spending multiple hours doing that stuff, so where am I supposed to fit that in?
That was the first crack in the foundation. Took a while, but once you realize that religious leaders are just men (and yes, it’s always men in the Mormon church), and that despite their claims they don’t have any prophetic powers, then you start questioning a lit of things, like how you can even know truth. (Spoiler: you can’t know truth without some kind of objective evidence, and all religions’ truth claims are based on subjective evidence and “see?, it says so, right here in my book!”)
Atheist is a label that says what you don’t believe. Satanist is a label that says what I do believe. So I eventually settled on Satanist.
Raised non-denominational Christian to Agnostic to Gnostic-curious.
My true faith is: don’t be an asshole and be a decent, rational and empathetic human being.
Everything else I may or may not believe does not matter, it’s decoration.
Subgenius.
Quaker curious
I wasn’t really raised with religion, but most of my family is Christian. I considered myself atheist as a young adult. But after many spiritual experiences, I believe in the unexplainable, but I’m not a fan of organized religion or cults.
No evidence for God, that’s why I’m an atheist.
It’s complicated but I used to be essentially atheist but now believe that there is something one might as well call “God” after studying philosophy. Essentially everything has a cause and something must be at the end of that chain, and we might as well call that “God.” I also practice Christianity because I feel that it is good to have the community and structure that a religion can provide but I don’t think that “God” necessarily exists in the way Christianity typically presents it.
Upvoting you because as an atheist I think its stupid that others are downvoting just because someone says they lean towards christianity
Eh. I could care less about downvotes and I understand that the idea of practicing Christianity for reasons beyond personal faith in it is going to be controversial to Christians and atheists alike. If someone made a chill Atheist/agnostic “church” where there was singing and discussions on moral philosophy, and a community of people devoted to helping each other and their community I’d probably be doing that but as it stands religion is the only game in town for such things and I think that it’s good to do something like this. Plus I don’t know, it’s kind of cool to be a part of rituals people have been doing for thousands of years.
Maybe this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism
Atheist. I was raised in various flavors of southern, whites protestant churches. Mostly the so-called charismatic, non-denominational, types, but also mainstream Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, etc, but not excluding some of the weirder cultish strains.
I left because I began to realize just how fucked in the head they raised me. I couldn’t relate to regular people very well at all, and couldn’t trust the judgement of religious people at any level. I got out and got the help I needed. I only wish I had done it sooner.
I’m an atheist. I grew up super religious and had a falling out with my church due to their “if someone believes different than our denomination they are going to hell” mindset. After that I found out that most other denominations are like that except for mormons but they are worse in other ways. Then I did more and more research that sort of caused what belief I had left to fall apart and now its kind of like Santa Claus, once you figure out its your parents putting presents under the tree theres no believing in Santa anymore
I am an atheist and ordained dudeist priest. Because it aligns with my values.
Grew up in a very religious home, in a very religious country (orthodox christian). I don’t think I ever truly “believed”, but I didn’t want to upset my family, so I got married in church and baptized my kids. I am an atheist, and don’t practice any religion now.
Antitheist.
If there is some kind of almighty God that created and rules everything then it must be the most evil being to ever exist and we must destroy it. It created evil, it created suffering, it created loss, it created death, and for what? Fun?
This is also me. If there’s an afterlife, I’m spending it beating “god’s” ass.
I once read about an african creed that states the original creator of reality created it because it found something existing was better than only void - in the sense of absolute nothing - existing, and thus set what we perceived as reality into building itself and let it to its own devise, to never again interfere or meddle with it, to then disappear.
It’s a convoluted way to state: deal with your own mess; I just set the stage, you write and act your own play.
It’s a good way to deny people of the easy cop out.
Imagine you intentionally become pregnant, give birth to a child, and then throw them in a dumpster. That’s the god you described.
Except multiply that by billions of lives.
If such happens it is entirely on the responsability and choice of who did. No cop out, no resorting to a scripture to excuse actions, no easy forgiveness.
I think you misunderstood - God is the one throwing the baby in a dumpster.
You got my atention. Explain your point of view, please.
Who is responsible for birth defects? For natural disaster? For sickness? These things aren’t choices and we aren’t responsible for them, they happen because god created a cruel world for us to suffer and die in. God created the dumpster and threw us in.
Who is responsible for birth defects?
Biology, genetics and environmental causes. And poor judgment from the parents. So, it depends.
For natural disaster?
I guess… physics, primordially? Followed by stuborness, shortsightness and stupidity of humans?
For sickness?
Virus, bacteria, exposure, malnourishment, and others?
These things aren’t choices […]
A good part is outside our capability to act upon, I will gladly grant you that. But there are parts where we can in fact influence the outcome.
[…] and we aren’t responsible for them, […]
The moment any individual realizes something shoul not be in such a way, that individual can take responsibility to avoid or mitigate it.
[…] they happen because god created a cruel world for us to suffer and die in. God created the dumpster and threw us in.
At best, reality is indeferent to what happens to an individual, a species, a planet, a star system or even a galaxy.
We have been setting our course in reality from the moment we achieved sentience and consciousness. We find things cruel, unfair, whatever, because they do not favour us. We’re owed nothing for existing. We take a debt towards each other in helping exist in such reality.
There are no gods nor higher powers to shift blame here. We’re here, now, and we have to deal with it. We can choose to try to make this world better for others or allow it to follow its own devises or even actively make it worse.
Individual agency. The stage is set: write and enact your own play.
It was wrong then - nothing existing is far preferable to this world with all its suffering
Tell me you are a broken human being without saying it.
I’m honestly sad for knowing you take life to such regard but there is more to reality and life than our own small sliver of experience and understanding.
I’m curious why you would define your belief in terms of opposition to one deity in specific when human history is littered with gods, many of whom were huge assholes. How do you feel about, say, Zeus or Mithras or Ahura Mazda? 'Fuck all of ‘em’ is a position I can understand, but ‘Fuck this one in specific and the rest are fine’ just seems a little odd, ya know?
I think more broadly you could say I’m anti-demiurge, I guess I don’t particularly hate the other gods but they’re just jumped up elementals/spirits. Like, whatever, some guy demands to be worshipped in exchange for boons or to bestow curses or whatever. I think he’s an asshole for lording his cool lightning powers over us, but I don’t think he needs to be destroyed for it per se.
Atheist. Religion is an explanation of the world that’s made the fuck up. I think people make shit up to explain reality because accepting uncertainty is difficult, but that doesn’t make it ok. The world around you exists, just like it is. There is no special place you get to go if you follow the right set of rules .
