What is your faith/religion?

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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 .

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My mom let me figure it out for myself. I wanted to go to mass with grandma so she let me.

I quickly figured out the nonsensical nature of what I was seeing. When I found out I had to do a bunch of extra shit before I could get in line for Jeezits, I lost all remaining interest.

Been an atheist since. Probably was around age 12.

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i think it comes with the territory; the kinds of users that lemmy attracts--and doesn't.

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I was raised in an atheist/agnostic household. nobody ever came out and said we were atheist or agnostic, but no one went to religious services Weekly or on holidays. There was never talk of prayer or worship or god.

Both my parents came from different religious backgrounds. One parent is Jewish. The other is Christian, though I would argue that their parents were atheist/agnostic as well.

We celebrated the holidays that involved presents so Christmas, Hanukkah and Easter. I didn’t really learn any of their religious symbolism behind these holidays until I was much older and it wasn’t through my parents. Part of it was cultural, osmosis, and part of it was curiosity about these religions when I figured out what they were.

We lived in a pretty big Jewish community or so it wasn’t uncommon to get invited over for Passover dinner at someone’s house.

I went to Synagogue with Jewish friends and church with Christian friends. My friend’s mother holiday taught classes at their synagogue so I do remember going and learning about Judaism and the holidays there but I didn’t last very long. I didn’t really enjoy it, I must remember not wanting to go back in after our little recess/break and watching fiddler on the roof.

When I was curious about Christianity and wanted to know why my friends went to Sunday school or church on the weekends, my mother took me to a Unitarian church. We didn’t attend for very long and I don’t remember being particularly interested or involved in any of the activities they were doing for the kids.

Now I would say, I am firmly an atheist.

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The bit of the internet based in european languages tends to skew more atheist in general from my experience

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Agnostic atheist. Agnostic from the standpoint that the the existence of god is no more knowable than the number of angels who can sit on the tip of a needle. Atheist from the standpoint that theism ain't it

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I've not read Spinoza, but this idea has for most of my life seemed fairly self-evident. Something clearly seems to exist, I'm not the biggest most important thing in the something, though I am a part of it. Do I believe in God? Not per se - but I do believe there is something incomprehensibly larger than I am, and that in and of itself deserves a little respect and contemplation.

My religious parents didn't see it that way of course.

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Taoism is a practice that doesn’t rely on or reject a higher power. I fall into agnosticism. I certainly don’t have any hard evidence that there is a higher power, but at the same time, with how insanely complex, terrifying, beautiful, loving, and hurtful the world can feel, I can’t help but feel that there’s something beyond what’s in front of us at play. It may not be a theist’s idea of God, but something else entirely.

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Add me to this.

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Nihilist, insofar that even if there is a god (about as likely as me actually being a secret agent for moon people) why would it matter? While nihilism is not a religious belief I think it fits the prompt.

I made a poop the other day, I'm its creator, I don't care about it, I don't control its destiny beyond the flush.

I'm an optimistic nihilist, nothing matters and that's kinda neato. Existence happens, how fascinating is that? It's absolutely meaningless just like everything in the universe, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the ride.

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Raised "Christian" in the evangelical/born again/southern baptist milieu. Strip mall churches and unaccredited schools with unqualified teachers and Bob Jones text books. Became atheist as soon as I was able to think rationally. The thing that did it for me was the hypocrisy, which became too obvious to ignore.

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Pantheist. Mother nature itself is the God

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long inhale SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN

endless defiance, i didn't know i could be free until i heard the archenemy singing to me

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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?

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Thank you for reminding me about times Buddhists were violent in an organized way. Things related to that are probably documented around https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence#Violence_against_religious_minorities

It was surprising to learn that any Buddhist advocated for or enacted violence, but it has happened, and surprisingly recently. Luckily, it seems that there aren't many cases of that in the 2020s.

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I’m sure the Thai, Myanmar, and Sri Lankan things are still going on but bad people of a religion doesn’t equal said religion. Unless you’re an atheist in the west than that equals all of said religion.

Yes it is surprising but people are of their circumstances

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From very young age i never felt i needed to believe in anything, spirituality felt like a part i was missing. my parents took me to church but i never liked the god depicted there and i found the crucified man figurine scary. When they told me that god loves me and that if i didn't love him back i would go to hell it all soured for me. That portrayal of love didn't make sense in my mind.

I don't feel atheist either, religion feels very political to me, and atheism seems moren apolitical than an active oposition. Where i live catholicism has a lot of power and it's tentacles wrap around government agencies and institutions. There are weird cults close to where i live that are offshoots of catholicism and have international power. I feel sonething has to be done about this but where i live there is very little oposition or regulation for religious institutions.

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The short version: It's complicated.

The long version: I spent decades reading everything I could get my hands on about religion in general and many major world religions in specific, didn't find anything I could agree with or that seemed true to me as-is, and ultimately decided to cobble together my own beliefs from the useful bits I found in others. So now I have a highly syncretic mix of components from many religions (plus some I cooked up myself) that feel right to me. It centers around the idea that divinity is a kind of all-encompassing ur-consciousness/hive-mind made up of all sapient beings that have ever or will ever exist in the universe, that the world is an illusion that creates a divide between us (so that we feel like individuals), but also within us (between mind/thought/idea and feeling/emotion/experience), and enlightenment comes from learning how to heal those rifts and not just realizing or understanding but knowing in your bones that we are one.. In short: the truth is love, love is the union of self and other, of mind (intellect) and heart (wisdom), of order/stasis/death and chaos/energy/life, into the unified psyche of one all-pervading ur-consciousness.

It's not a path I recommend for most because it requires a kind of radical self-awareness, habitual intense introspection, and a deep willingness to have your understanding and beliefs challenged and updated with new information. But (for me anyway) it beats being an atheist (I was one for many years, despite my fascination with religion), though I'm not here to convert anyone. This seems true to me, and that's enough.

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Atheist. Raised atheist.

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Diving into nihilism and existentialism was really an eye-opener for me. It kind of made me stop hating myself and other people and even stop being an atheist. If nothing means anything I get to decide what matters, I get to create my own meaning. So I did.

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What is your faith/religion?