What is your faith/religion?
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i think it comes with the territory; the kinds of users that lemmy attracts--and doesn't.
The bit of the internet based in european languages tends to skew more atheist in general from my experience
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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
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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Itās more of a philosophical god than a being with consciousness. Simplified, everything in existence is god, but individual things are not god on their own. He clarified later that god is āthe sum of the natural and physical laws of the universe and certainly not an individual entity or creator.ā Seeing god as more of the framework of existence itself is a very compelling way for me to perceive the connection of all things without a bearded man in the sky.
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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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
Taoism is a practice that doesnāt rely on or reject a higher power. I fall into agnosticism. I certainly donāt 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 canāt help but feel that thereās something beyond whatās in front of us at play. It may not be a theistās idea of God, but something else entirely.
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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
Add me to this.
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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
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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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
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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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
Pantheist. Mother nature itself is the God
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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
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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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
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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Thatās kind of you to say but there are certainly plenty of problematic Buddhist groups, like any social group.
What about you?
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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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.
Iām sure the Thai, Myanmar, and Sri Lankan things are still going on but bad people of a religion doesnāt equal said religion. Unless youāre 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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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
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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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
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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and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today
Atheist. Raised atheist.
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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.
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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Could you explain further
Pantheism basically. The universe literally is god.
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The English speaking world as a whole is still, to my knowledge, majority Christian even if not actively so, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that many of us came from a Christian background. Nor, I suppose, that so many of are ex-.
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Really happy for ya, parents usually don't take these things so well, mine would probably disown me if I ever came out about having different beliefs
I will never understand this. Every parent knows their children have their own minds; you don't expect your child to think the same thoughts as you, or to have the same experiences as you had, so why would you ever be surprised - much less dismayed - that they come to different conclusions about religion than you do? Did you do your homework and come to that conclusion yourself? Great, if that's what makes you happy then I'm happy.
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Buddhist, I was more Christian. Growing up in a fundamentalist church and becoming more intellectual drove me to ask big question that Christianity didnāt answer for me. Causes and conditions allowed me to encounter Buddhism when I was living in Japan and itās grown in me ever since. I really liked how Zen meditation made me feel. Very different from being told to pray but there was nothing and also no unstructured. Buddhism has clear practices and results. I know it has āsupernaturalā elements but itās all mostly logical to me and I like that
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.
