and if you atheist/switched faiths, why did you do it and what faith did you choose?
im in a curious mood today :>
You must log in or register to comment.
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it’s welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
Icon by @Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de
- 0 users online
- 199 users / day
- 922 users / week
- 2.43K users / month
- 5.58K users / 6 months
- 1 subscriber
- 3.07K Posts
- 119K Comments
- Modlog
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 .
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.
Biology, genetics and environmental causes. And poor judgment from the parents. So, it depends.
I guess… physics, primordially? Followed by stuborness, shortsightness and stupidity of humans?
Virus, bacteria, exposure, malnourishment, and others?
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.
The moment any individual realizes something shoul not be in such a way, that individual can take responsibility to avoid or mitigate it.
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.
And… who made those?
And who made that!?
We are, actually. We didn’t ask to exist. It was forced onto us by a cruel god that thought it would be neat to make humans.
If we think back to the dumpster baby, god created a child and threw them in a dumpster. For fun. It doesn’t get to wash its hands and say “I don’t owe them anything, it’s up to them to survive.” It’s still responsible for creation and it is derelict in its duty.
We aren’t owed nothing.
I’m going to take a hit and say I made a poor job at explaining myself and clarify that, for the creed I mentioned, the creator entity did not made humans. What the creator entity did was set off the unfolding of reality as we perceive it: the Universe. Humans contained within it are off shoots of causality.
There was never a direct nor directed intention to create humanity, thus, nothing is owed to it.
The premise is that anything to exist is better than nothing. If the Universe was to be populated with barren rocks and flaming balls of matter - which is, mostly - without humanity to perceive it that creation mythos was already fullfilled.
That premise is the premise of the christian, islamic, jewish, and all other self appointed omnipotent creating entities. Those entities claim to have created humanity, in their image, to ocuppy a world they devised for that specific purpose. A world created in such a way that, nonetheless, humans make use of their own agency to tamper and distort.
I’m not a believer but that is the short and dirty version of those myths: the world was perfect, until humans decided they weren’t completely happy with it. Which leads us back to pointing fingers at the creator, for making a poor job.
This is a circular discussion.
Well, yeah, those are the gods I hate. I used the term “almighty” as a shorthand for “god that created literally everything.” They created everything including non-physical concepts like good and evil. You’re basically just describing a Big Bang with a personality, which isn’t really in the category of gods I hate. That god just made cool stars and rocks and stuff, it didn’t really make everything. Rather, the rocks spontaneously came to life and started suffering without input.
Nothing really deserves that much attention from you.
Reading that comment, the words you chose to express how you view reality, pains me as a human being.
I can’t imagine what you have been through in order to be weighed down with such a bleak view of life and the world.
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.
Demiurge in the Gnostic sense? Or is there some broader sense I’m not familiar with there?
So… your position is that all gods are real according to their own cosmogony, and one of them in particular has pissed you off but the rest just don’t rise to the level of being worth the effort of hating? My compliments, that’s a pretty interesting position and one I’ve not seen before.
Well, no, my position is that gods could be real but none of them are worth worshiping.
Then, additionally, if there’s some kind of omnipotent and omniscient Creator then it’s evil and I hate it.
Ah, fair enough, that makes sense and I generally agree. I have my own beliefs and ideas about personified deities, but I agree, I dunno why some of these deities are even worshiped given their legacy of evil and assholery, so if they do really exist they should absolutely be opposed.
Baptized catholic by my parents, did all the ritual things all my youth until i was 16. Then i was old enough to try to understand it, got exposed to other schools of thought, and it all collapsed like a house of cards.
I am now fully atheist, and I find religion ridiculous, like fairy tales for adults, based on nothing. Organized religions are also usually structures of power for men. This can all go.
My spirituality would be:
We are made of star-stuff. Temporary piles of molecules which work together and stop after a while, to recombine into something new. I don’t need to be remembered, I don’t need to leave my mark. Just try to do no harm, any maybe help others along the way, while on this ball of rock and water, tumbling into the immensely empty void.
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.
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.
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
Taoism is a practice that doesn’t rely on or reject a higher power. It gives meaning to day to day life and the writers I’ve read who practice it have a very practical view on the world.
As for religion, 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.
No evidence for God, that’s why I’m an atheist.
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.
I am a Muslim, so Islam.
Wow, you are like the only Muslim here lol, are you from the west?
Nope, not the west, asia
Pantheist. Mother nature itself is the God
Agnostic atheist.
Antitheist
2nd
Grew up atheist, went through a semi serious pagan phase, got certified as a shaman, went back to atheism. Will still throw in the odd ritual, but more with the expectation that it will affect the way I think about a problem rather than the ritual doing anything on its own.
So like if you have a job interview you can either raw dog it and show your lack of confidence or.preform a ritual and gain some confidence which will count in your favour during the interview.h
Is the ritual doing any direct alterations? No, but it’s still useful.
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.