What is your faith/religion?

[libra00@lemmy.world]

I've kind of always liked the idea of Buddhism, but I've never really been able to grapple with it in a way that made sense (in a gut-feel sort of way) to me. I guess living somewhere that has a sizeable Buddhist population could make the difference.

[libra00@lemmy.world]

There is a history of religious violence both within Buddhism and against it, as with most religions,, so some people definitely don't like them very much.

[libra00@lemmy.world]

Man it's been a while since I've come across a pagan reconstructionist in the wilds of social media. Cheers!

I hadn't heard of Romuva before, but I used to know a bunch back in the day; Celts, Hellenists, Kemetics, etc.

[deconceptualist@lemm.ee]

Discordian!

More serious answer: I never had one to begin with. Why start now? All it seems to do is sow division.

[tabbsthebat@pawb.social]

Baltic pagans are definitely rarer to encounter online than the others :3.. these days I feel like I mostly meet hellenists and wicca with a sprinkle of germanic pagans

At least there's a lot of holidays to attend in person tho haha x3

[libra00@lemmy.world]

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?

[everymuffinisnowencrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Atheist.

As far as I see, there are 2 basic possible states for being(s) with regards to divinity: either they're omnipotent or they're not omnipotent. (Partial omnipotence may perhaps be great power, but it is still non-omnipotence by definition.)

The Stone Paradox demonstrates that full omnipotence cannot happen; and any being, however powerful, that does not have full omnipotence is inherently no different than me or you and thus has no right to be considered a god.

---

and if you switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?

Well, I used to be a Christian, but only by virtue of being raised as one. As I grew older, I grew out of Christianity. It makes no sense to me from the perspective of the scientific method or Occam's Razor. Also, my very traditional Christian family did not exactly live up to the Christ-like ideals of love and tolerance, so that definitely put me off it, I can tell you that much.

As I got older, I tried other religions: Islam, Zen Buddhism, Earth paganism, various other forms of paganism. They were excellent experiences that taught me the value of different faiths but they were, in the end, not for me. I like the rock that the scientific method provides, and I like how it teaches and encourages critical thinking ability. With science, I don't need to take some reverend's word for it that a magical sky-daddy is watching me masturbate while my great-great-grandmother judges me from past the celestial gates. I can be confident to know that there's no sense worrying my head about that because it's far more likely they're dead, in the ground, disintegrating back into the earth from whence they came.

[libra00@lemmy.world]

48 SATANs and not one hidden SANTA - I'm impressed, and a little disappointed.

[libra00@lemmy.world]

Yeah, true that. Hell, reconstructionists in general are pretty rare, much less finding the rare thing within a group of rare things. Also I've always been a lil uneasy around German pagans, unfortunately there's a strong undercurrent of white nationalism that has co-opted/corrupted some of it and it's hard to tell them apart at a glance.

Though Wiccans aren't reconstructionists in the usual sense; they're not rediscovering/recreating something that once was so much as syncretizing something new out of the pieces of a bunch of pre-Christian/indigenous practices.

[tabbsthebat@pawb.social]

Yeah the germanic thing is quite unfortunate.. the main symbol for romuva also catches the religion a fair share of drama tho x3

[tacobuttplug@sh.itjust.works]

This is also me. If there's an afterlife, I'm spending it beating "god's" ass.

[queermunist@lemmy.ml]

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.

[tacobuttplug@sh.itjust.works]

I'm agnostic but read somewhere that maybe water is god.

https://medium.com/@fadi.arab/water-is-god-4320f558db05

[bmebenji@lemm.ee]

I was raised protestant Christian.

I would say what I believe now is heavily influenced by that, but also heavily influenced by how clearly the focus that evangelical Christians put on the idea “God needs to be feared more than They need to be followed” has fucked up so much of the world. Fearing someone at the cost of spreading their message is nonsensical, idiotic, hypocritical, and toxic to human society.

According to the Bible, Jesus Christ rarely answered direct questions with direct answers; most of the time his answers came in the form of a story or a parable explaining one possible answer to the question given one possible context, implying that humans are encouraged to use their judgment to figure out how best to approach a situation. Imagine that. An all-powerful creator who granted intelligence like Their own to Their creation and actually wanting that intelligence to be exercised.

One of the most notable instances where Jesus answered a direct question with a direct answer is Mark 12:28-31:

“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

In no uncertain terms, love is the most important commandment. Furthermore, Jesus equates loving your neighbor to loving God in Matthew chapter 25. It’s not evangelism, it’s not religious authoritarianism. It’s not indoctrination. It’s love.

I believe this world was created by an omniscient Creator who wanted humanity to use the intelligence granted to us to freely develop a society centered around love.

[qyron@sopuli.xyz]

Laic

I don't care about religion or beliefs. It's irrelevant to me in my day to day life.

I have a personal code of ethic, developed through personal experience and reading several philosophy proposals, taking from each what I find useful and discarding the rest.

[qyron@sopuli.xyz]

The ancestors part always brings a smile to my face.

1. they were young, once, hence, they had sex, masturbated, etc.

You being alive is proof enough of the later. No room for judgement there: they've been there, done that.

2. the entire "cult of the ancestors" starts on the present.

If the person paying respect to past figures is concerned over such petty parts of life, that person is concerned over the wrong things.

3. you will, theoretically, become an ancestor one day.

Will you be bothered over petty things or be concerned with your descendants living well and happy, like you wanted, tried and wished for others?

I do enjoy the notion of teverence towards the ancestors. It's like having a personal roster from which to choose and say "not doing what they did" or "they had worst and made it". Or a personal fan club.

[qyron@sopuli.xyz]

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.

[accideath@lemmy.world]

Was raised roman-catholic but got disillusioned pretty quickly. I was fairly religious in elementary school but by the time I was 14, I was agnostic/atheist.

Partially because my parents aren’t religious (my mum is from the GDR, so she didn’t grow up with religion and my dad seceded from church before I was even born) and even my grandma, who was the religious one (albeit never very strongly, compared to American catholics. More a „goes to church on religious holidays“ type of person), drifted away from church quite a bit after all the child-rapist priest shit that was uncovered at the time.

By now (mid 20s) I’d probably consider myself agnostic. Can’t prove there is no higher power but also, if there is, we wouldn’t know what religion – if any – is right anyways. It’s probably not christianity though.

[Guest]

You're more psychotic than agnostic

[tacobuttplug@sh.itjust.works]

You're following me over from an article where YOU MISREAD how I was shocked to see Russia fucking their nation over instead of the US. And then you turned into a weird little Pro Russian cunt.

I think the psychosis is more on your end, Borat.