I believe it partially, I’m sikh and I think a lot of rules were based on them needing to identify each other or living in times of war, like keeping long hair and a beard, always carrying a kirpan (dull small blade these days used to be a full sized sword til the british forced changes)
Most of the shit is legit just telling you to be a good person because we all come from the same place and goto the same place. Energy, doesn’t really have an afterlife, which I hated as a kid. Was so jealous other ppl get afterlifes lol.
I kinda like the concept, like the one omniscient god can’t die or really live becaue they can’t die, experince pain, or get hurt, so we live and exist to experience life/death, etc. for them. That’s why once you stop caring about wordly desires you rejoin god.
Idk it’s kinda fun and makes sense, kinda supports my personal belief that we all evolved to eventually become god like beings (not us but descendants millions of years from now)
Like if a god exists, they would set into motion all the events that need to occur for life to exist and eventually humans to evolve, but we aren’t the final step or goal. It’s like a simulation game where they know what combination of events leads to another god like being existing.
Or the more fun option is that time isn’t linear, and whatever god is, is the furthest evolution of the human race and it loops back creating itself in a paradox.
Because I know exactly what death will be like. So do you. Think back to before you were born, there was nothing. There, that is death. Not much to be afraid of.
Santa’s elves don’t make toys, Chinese children do.
I believe in Pantheism. I’m not sure if its really a religion or more of a philosophy but in the end it makes the most sense to me. It doesn’t have a fancy book or any rules to follow. Nothing really changes by believing in it either. Its just nice and it makes sense to me.
I’m an atheist but I think Zoroastrianism is cool.
The closest thing I have to a religion is Buddhism. I practice it. I meditate daily. I read about it. As far as belief goes, though, it doesn’t ask you to have faith outside of believing that if you follow the practice you will see the results they say you will. The millennia old texts that it’s based on are called Suttas. One of them, the Kalama Sutta, explicitly tells the villagers of Kalama not to believe it just because they are told it is so.
"Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.
Personally I have seen the results of my meditation in my life. I’m still early on the path, but it seems to be progressing as they say it will. I have developed, through a few years of practice, the ability to focus on the present moment and still my mind to the point that, at least for a short time, thoughts don’t arise. I’m fully aware of where I am and what is happening, but my mind is still. It doesn’t last for long, but with more practice it will. I’m developing what’s called samadhi, a type of concentrated focus where, eventually, nothing interrupts your concentration and you can maintain it as long as you like. I have a ways to go, but it appears to be progressing as expected.
So to answer the question, I believe it because I have experienced it. Many of the parts I haven’t yet experienced I suspect are true, though I will only understand and believe them when I do experience them for myself.
ITT: Atheists
So predictable…
I’m an atheist due Roman Catholic grade school. The teachings about religion were crazy.
I also went to Roman Catholic high school and college but religion was very miner. College required four religion type courses but including courses such as ethics and logic.
I’m an atheist bcs I don’t have a wild imagination.
I’ve read through the Bible cover to cover three times. Amplified, NIV, and New King James with a copy of Strongs.
I’m an atheist now.
I understand the reaction. The Bible is sold by a lot of churches as “the word of God”, and if it’s the case, God is a lying asshole. But nowhere in the Bible it is written that the Bible is the word of God; according to the Bible the word of God is Jesus-Christ so… it may not be the right approach according to the Bible itself.
I love the Bible, I read it (almost) every day, I use it as a guide in my material and spiritual lives, I studied the story of its interpretation in the university, I even thought about making that my speciality. Yet I don’t understand how someone could believe in biblical inerrancy. It’s very clearly a human work, written by error-prone normal humans. I believe that God spoke to its redactors, but it’s still a human work. And ours is (according to me) to listen to the voice of God through the human form; and that’s why we have the Church, as it’s not something one can do alone.
I like your view.
Though I don’t do church anymore, either they worship the current incarnation of the antichrist or they’re lead by weak leaders who aren’t willing or capable to do what it takes to be a great leader in my experience.
We tried a few liberal / LGBTQ lead churches and I just couldn’t continue to participate. My wife kept going longer than I did but she hasn’t gone in a few years.
What made you an atheist?
I think they are saying reading those books are the reason.
Any part in particular?
The Bible is pretty fallible when looking at it objectively IMO. But the nail in the coffin was contrasting what the Bible asks of us vs what Christianity does. The tyrannical cheeto is as close to the antichrist as we’ve seen and they’re all gaga for him as an example. But I’ve been disillusioned since Obama’s first election. The terrible and false things “the church” and soon to be former church friends said about him was next level bullshit. Yet when I highlighted that the Bible clearly says the worst relationship we have with man is our relationship with Christ landed in def ears.
“The impenitent sometimes excuse themselves by saying of professed Christians, “I am as good as they are. They are no more self-denying, sober, or circumspect and their conduct then I am. They love pleasure and self-indulgence as well as I do.” Thus they make the faults of others an excuse for their own neglect of duty. But the sins and defects of others do not excuse anyone; for the Lord has not given us an erring human pattern. The spotless Son of God has been given as our example, and those who complain of the wrong course of professed Christians are the ones who should show better lives and nobler examples. If they have so high a conception of what a Christian should be, is not their own sin so much the greater? They know what is right, and yet refuse to do it.”
- Steps to Christ p. 32
Translation: Judge not shall you be judged
it’s better to say things in 6 words instead of 100+ (I didn’t count)
Just saying
And I disagree with that argument. It’s like saying a critique can’t be a critique unless he or she can do better, which is bullshit. And the premise that being disillusioned with a group means I must think higher of myself is a step too far.
Not op, but for me it was the fact that the supposedly ineffable word of God turned out to be pretty effible
It wasn’t the first step towards losing faith, or even the last, but it was pretty troubling to a young me
It bothered you that a document written over thousands of years by dozens of authors didn’t agree in every imaginable way?
I was taught and fully believed that it was the literal and inerrant word of God, guided by his hand and infallible… so yes, finding errors in it was a disturbing. The authors or it’s age shouldn’t matter if they’re being guided by an all knowing and all powerful being. It wasn’t until much later that I found out how much of it is suspected forgery. Probably could have saved a couple years of agony there
I believe there is lots of important knowledge about morality etc. embedded inside religious books. This is why is is worth reading those. Also there is lots of shitty and immoral stuff i try to ignore. Why would I try to implement those.
The other important stuff is active community. A single person can only do so much good. But if you are doing good as a whole local community you can do project far bigger than you could pull off yourself.
So it was easy to decide to keep the religion I was raised in. This is the biggest religion with biggest community.
This is about my religious framework and why I have it. However I distinct between my religion and my personal believes. Personally I am ignostic (with I), so I think we almost never use the same definitions for God, Being, to believe, to exist,… I even hold an opinion, by what most atheists define what God is, most grown up Christians are atheists. And the other way around. I think we hold pretty similar believes but we use different meaning for same words.
I was born a SubGenius just like all other SubGenii. I must have Slack!
Praise “Bob”
I have personally experienced librarians and they have helped me when in need.
I spiritually disbelieve in everyone’s religion
I do not really know. I was not raised in a practicing family, and my country is very secular.
Philosophically, I’m agnostic. I’m not convinced either by arguments for or against the existence of God. I think a being which could exist outside time and space is not approachable by our reason.
But I can’t stay neutral, the question is too important. And I feel the presence of God in my life. This feeling came first, and when I tried to understand it, I went to the culturally nearest place of worship, and it was Protestantism, and I felt at home. I read the Bible, not as a theology manual, but as the story of people who try to understand the presence of God; sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong, but their quest is mine, and theirs inspires mine.
I feel the same way reading the Bible. Even as early as Genesis I was like damn Abraham I already don’t understand why you tried to pimp out your sister-wife ONCE so why did you KEEP DOING IT? Somebody recently commented that they find the Bible boring and I was like you need to find a modern translation because if you can even vaguely understand what’s actually going on that shit is WILD. Turns out humans have always been crazy AF and personally I actually find that kinda comforting. Makes a lot of modern shit seem less unmanageable. Another great example is the whole Onan thing. It’s wild that somebody decided to make it about masturbation when if you really get down to it it’s a story about a dude who thinks he’s being slick by obeying the letter of the current law to (literally) screw his widowed sister in law out of her rightful property and THAT story is TIMELESS.
I want to have an afterlife. I study science, and sometimes I feel like there are things humans won’t get in my lifetime. So I like to think that I can continue on learning even after I die.
