Not anymore, but grew up in church.
I am a Unitarian Universalist atheist. I have volunteered at church and go to church fairly regularly. I don't believe in some power greater than us. I don't believe we go anywhere after we die. More personally, I don't think there is any special purpose to our existence.
I was not raised religious and never went to Church. I had a period of time where I was interested in paganism and witchcraft, and I have sort of dabbled in getting back to that, but I think it is just not clicking for me right now.
I don't know if there is a divine being that exists and if it does, is it something humans can even comprehend? I do believe in luck and karma (or at least some basic form of 'you will harvest from the seeds you plant'). I don't seriously believe in a heaven and hell, but I do like to imagine my loved ones in a sort of heaven, just hanging out together happily.
I am not especially a fan of how religions have been used as a tool to oppress other people. I suspect the cruel people who use religion as their hammer would find anything other excuse to be terrible if they couldn't use religion though.
I was born and raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools up to college. I feel very disconnected from the religion because of how it upholds discriminatory views against gender minorities. There was also a lot of fear instilled in me when I was younger and I just grew out of it eventually. It didn't make sense that I would do good just because a higher being promised salvation when I die. There well also too many hypocrites around me who would go to church religiously but never practice the teachings from the priest.
I now try to make sense of life as I see it and I still practice spirituality through Tarot. It's brought me a lot of peace but I still struggle every now and then
Yes, kind of. However, I was raised Pentecostal and strictly conservative, and have lingering religious trauma that I'm working through. For a while (from my teens through my mid-twenties) I described myself as atheist. However, I got into witchcraft and the occult a few years ago as kind of a time-waster hobby, not really sincerely believing in it at first but just having fun with it, and that grew into learning about other religions and becoming genuinely curious about spirituality and religion. Now I'd describe myself as a Unitarian Universalist. I've still never been to a Unitarian Universalist church in-person because there's not one near me, but I attend online stuff occasionally and whole-heartedly love the way they do religion. And I feel welcomed there despite all of the things that would have gotten me dirty looks at any of the churches I grew up in. In terms of belief, I'd say I'm agnostic and I like to "put on" and "take off" beliefs (or "suspend disbelief"), which I got from doing chaos magic. I think magic and ritual helps me organize and make sense of my mind more than anything else... if anything, just having a meditation and journaling habit has helped my mental health, especially since i re-started those habits after starting my gender transition. And yeah, it also maybe helps with everything else gestures to the world at large...
And yeah, I just realized this is the most I've talked about my spirituality to anyone since going down this road. One of my big things is that my spirituality is a very personal thing and I keep it mostly to myself. Nothing against people who proselytize (I've come to understand and forgive people who sincerely believe they're saving my life by "ministering" to me, like some of my older relatives who genuinely care about me and who are probably happy to hear me say "yeah, I'm kind of getting into a church now") but I don't feel compelled to tell people about my shit because I definitely have no answers. That's my whole thing, I have no answers. I'm just kind of reading everything and trying everything, for no purpose other than to just understand people and myself a little better. And maybe it works for me, but I also know folks who definitely don't want or need religion and that is 1000% okay, and I hope I don't disturb them. So I only really speak of my stuff when people ask.
I am agnostic. My personal point of view is that if there some sort of all-powerful being(s) and they want something other than "don't be a jerk" out of me, I don't care enough to put effort into impress them.
I do love learning about other people's belief systems, though, as long as they don't try to prostelytize to me.
I don't, I'm an atheist. I grew up in a very strict christian household (my dad took away my yugioh cards and my Harry Potter books for being "demonic" lmao) kinda turned me off to religion.
I've found myself surrounded by a lot of spiritual people lately and I've used it as an excuse to try and get in touch with that side of myself. It's been a very interesting experience. There's a lot of it I still don't understand but a lot of it is just nice vibes? Like I don't ascribe any meaning to the moon or when I'm born or male and female sexual energies or being actually connected to the souls of anyone else but sometimes it's nice to recognize when things are just unexplainable by conventional means and to use a common language to recognize it. To speak in soft or uncertain terms as a way to acknowledge something you can't quite put your finger on, only to have it create a wonderful connecting conversation with another human is honestly kind of nice. And it makes approaching certain subjects a little bit more accessible because it's not rigorous and scientific but more human centered and amorphous.
i don’t have much to add, but just wanted to say i really like this comment. i think you captured my feelings towards spirituality as a non religious but curious person- there’s just soft nice feeling that can be hard to explain but definitely keeps me coming back to investigate more. being able to lighten up, and look at the world in a less rigorous, always science focused way is just nice.
No, I'm too gay lmao.
My "spirituality" is more just driven by my experiences with living, psychedelics, art, and science. Which is to say, I see myself as the atoms which comprise me, which will and actively are becoming other lifeforms (and viruses/prions) when my homeostasis is thrown off hard enough (cell death and the big death). I feel less like a "person" and more like a meat computer. Could be because I'm autistic and dissociate a lot from trauma/undiagnosed ADHD, but like, I do like the feeling of just "existing". I feel like one of countless experiences of the universe experiencing itself. I try to do what makes me happy, (art, gardening, video games, programming) which includes helping my community and surroundings to be healthy, happy, and free, as one person can manage to make it.
I can't always meet my own standards because I'm only one person. I still try to strive to do what I can.
Is anarchism a religion? Or is it faith in the inherent interconnectedness of nature? I think all creatures are better than we (human society) give them credit for. I don't feel anthropocentrism will get us anywhere. I believe we're more than the systems that control us (capitalist megamachine, fascism, racism, sexism, colonialism, ableism, speciesism, etc.). We, creatures of the earth, are no better or worse than anything or anyone else. And these specific bodies make us able to discuss and address inequality and injustice, and try to get as close to planetwide systemic homeostasis as possible. You are me are nature are gods are the universe. We'll meet again in a different context, as different creatures, as not quite the same set of atoms. But some of what comprises "us" (myself and anyone reading this) will be there, in the future, perhaps even in the same creature. I don't think there's an "afterlife" just a different ongoing thread of "life". I'm still terrified of dying of course, I'd like to keep this "system", this "body", alive as long as possible. But I'm a bit more ok with it than I used to be. And mourning my own death after being zooted out of my mind helped a bit.
TLDR "Ego death^TM^" to sound even more like a stereotypical stoner/psychedelics user lmao.
I just don’t like having someone tell me how I should think and that’s why I was never interested in religion. :D Also seeing how religions make people behave really turned me away from them.
No
No, not for me. My wife and I are both athiests, but she believes in spirits, some sort of afterlife where some are able to communicate with the living world (like mediums).
I'm very skeptical, and I'll reserve judgement until something can be proven.
I'm all for individual spirituality if it makes you happy and doesn't negatively influence your decision making process.
I have a problem when it makes people hurt others, or vote for those who would legislate hurting others.
No. I am a person who bases beliefs on logic and reason. There is no logic or reason for religion or spirituality. I see it as a delusion based in the hopes and fears of a person, instead of reality that can be measured and quantified.
I don't begrudge others having such religious or spiritualistic beliefs, as long as it is kept within oneself. My main issues for religionists:
- Don't legislate it
- Don't have it in schools
- Don't indoctrinate children
- Keep it strictly personal.
Sadly, I will die and decompose back to the universe with millions (or billions) of people who still want (and succeed in doing so) to make laws based on their specific religious ideals and brainwash children into it.
Yes, absolutely. Just not tied to any specific church or religion.
I'm not entirely sure where I stand, religously. I want to believe in some sort of a god but I cannot grasp onto the idea no matter how hard I try. Whenever I try to do any sort of praying, it's like I'm just talking into darkness. As for a specific religion, I was raised nondenominational christian, but I've been drawn towards islam as of recent.
No.
I was expelled from Sunday school, I asked too many questions (faith is not about critical thinking).
Now it seems to me like faith/religion serves only one purpose - controling people. It doesn't matter on which historic period you look at it is always about politics and control.
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