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
Add me to this.
Agnostic atheist.
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.
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.
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.
Who is responsible for birth defects?
Biology, genetics and environmental causes. And poor judgment from the parents. So, it depends.
For natural disaster?
I guess… physics, primordially? Followed by stuborness, shortsightness and stupidity of humans?
For sickness?
Virus, bacteria, exposure, malnourishment, and others?
These things aren’t choices […]
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.
[…] and we aren’t responsible for them, […]
The moment any individual realizes something shoul not be in such a way, that individual can take responsibility to avoid or mitigate it.
[…] they happen because god created a cruel world for us to suffer and die in. God created the dumpster and threw us in.
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.
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.
I believe in myself. I believe in everyone else too, until they give me a reason not to.
I believe every particle/atom/point within my reality has a connection equivalent to what one might call a ‘soul’ and it exists outside of dimensional reality, the dimensions being represented by a line (1d), a plane (2d), a field (3d) and the function of time (4d). Currently for me this puts these connections in the 5th dimension. I use the term “philote” as a label for each connection. That term is borrowed from the Ender books.
Life as we know it is made up of many atoms, formed into molecules, cells, organs and so on. At the core, each atom having its own connected philote, an organism is a community of philotes working together to stay connected and keep the organism going. The organism they represent is in a way, their religion. I believe in the philotes representing my human body. They believe in me.
When I die, my atoms with scatter. Some philotes will be swept away in the atmosphere, some will become the rotting and disintegrating organs of my body. Unless I’m cremated or destroyed in some other way similar, some parts of my body will remain connected. The philotes that make up my bones will remain connected to each other, as the philotes of my skin and blood etc. spread and become new things.
If I meet someone and have an affinity to them, I believe that some of my philotes and some of their philotes were once part of the same organism. They belonged to the same philotic ‘church’ of that organism. They recognize each other. They like each other. Thus I like the other person and they like me, even if we can’t explain why ourselves. It is like magnetism, our philotes know each other and know they have similar goals and will work together. Since philotes exist outside of time, this affinity may be caused by something which has not occurred yet. Perhaps the other person and I die and many of our philotes become a new entity sometime in the future. A new church or religion of philotes.
If I meet someone and do not like them and cannot explain why, I believe that my philotes and their philotes are of opposing goals. Their philotic church does not agree with my philotic church. The philotes are repelled from each other, like how a magnet will repel. We go our separate ways. Perhaps their philotes were once part of an organism and my philotes were once part of the blade which killed their organism. Perhaps one day some of my philotes are part of an organism that is consumed by their organism. Some philotic clusters do not like an event. They accept it but will repel future or past encounters with philotes of the opposing mass. They do not believe in them. Their church is not the same. They do not like the outcome. There could be many reasons. Your beliefs still exist within my beliefs, even if yours do not include mine.
The big bang. The heat death of the universe. The big suck. No, the big suck is not referring to an adult video or a powerful vacuum or my ex. It’s the opposite of the expansion of the universe. The big bang exploded. It spreads all atoms out. An atom and its philote no longer want to spread out. They want to return. They flip. They become dark matter or dark energy. They change direction in the 4th dimension. They contract instead of expanding. Other philotes agree and flip. Eventually, the universe stops expanding and contracts. The philotes reunite. They become a singularity. All existance in one point. That is too much for one point. It explodes. The big bang happens again. This never ends. This is happening an infinite number of times right now. Dark matter and dark energy are not measurable because they do not exist anymore at that point in time. From the perspective of a flipped philote, our existance is the dark matter. The flipping happens in all directions in 4 dimensions. It can be backwards on a line, diagonally on a plane, it can loop in a field and go sideways in time.
The big bang, the heat death of the universe and the big suck I represent like this: ∞=|¿√∞²?|=∞ Reality is equal to the question of the absolute value of the square root of infinity squared. A pointless math formula. A story that unfolds and returns.
Christian. Only by the Grace of God am I alive today.
Satanist.
Raised Mormon, was a Mormon missionary. Had a nervous breakdown, and religious leaders said that I must be sinning, and needed to pray more, read my scriptures more, and repent. But… What sin? And how was I supposed to pray/study more when I had already dedicated two years of my life to preaching? E.g., there’s 24 hours in the day, and I’m already spending multiple hours doing that stuff, so where am I supposed to fit that in?
That was the first crack in the foundation. Took a while, but once you realize that religious leaders are just men (and yes, it’s always men in the Mormon church), and that despite their claims they don’t have any prophetic powers, then you start questioning a lit of things, like how you can even know truth. (Spoiler: you can’t know truth without some kind of objective evidence, and all religions’ truth claims are based on subjective evidence and “see?, it says so, right here in my book!”)
Atheist is a label that says what you don’t believe. Satanist is a label that says what I do believe. So I eventually settled on Satanist.
Spinoza’s god fascinates me enough to be agnostic rather than an atheist with conviction.
Could you explain further
It’s more of a philosophical god than a being with consciousness. He said that god is “the sum of the natural and physical laws of the universe and certainly not an individual entity or creator.” Simplified, everything in existence is god, but individual things are not god on their own. That point is an important distinction between Spinoza’s god and animism.
Perceiving god as more of the framework of existence itself is a very compelling way for me to appreciate the connection of all things, without accepting a bearded man in the sky or encroaching on my scientific understanding.
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.
Pantheism basically. The universe literally is god.
Raised non-denominational Christian to Agnostic to Gnostic-curious.
Atheist. I was raised in various flavors of southern, whites protestant churches. Mostly the so-called charismatic, non-denominational, types, but also mainstream Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, etc, but not excluding some of the weirder cultish strains.
I left because I began to realize just how fucked in the head they raised me. I couldn’t relate to regular people very well at all, and couldn’t trust the judgement of religious people at any level. I got out and got the help I needed. I only wish I had done it sooner.
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.
This one thinks there were three cycles of moon giving from our mother Fadomai. Ahnurr gave Fadomai her cubs. First was Alkosh, followed by Khenarthi, Magrus, Mara lastly there was S’rendarr.
During the second moon gift there was now Merrunz, Mafala, followed by Sangiin.
Although Ahnurr’s house was full, Alkosh and others wanted more cubs to bask in lights warmth.
So Fadomai gave her first cubs their wishes. Azurah, Nirni, Y’ffer, Masser, Secunda all joined with the light children.
Fadomai still had longing for small cubs so she fled to the void and one cub, Lorkhaj was given.
Exhausted, Fadomai knew her time of ending was near. So a gift was given to Nirni, for she desired to give cubs the light.
So it was that Nirni came to her brother Lorkhaj for she needed a new dwelling for her cubs. Lorkhaj did just so, forming the mortal realm. Some of Fadomai’s first cubs were imprisoned in the new realm. The second set of Fadomai’s cubs saw what had happened and did not follow.
Mayhaps was not just Nirni who was given the gift of cubs. So is said Azurah came down to one of Nirni’s cubs and shape his form most desirably, so log as they would be given their mother Fadomai’s Beauty, Ahnurr intelligence and Alkosh’s streingth.
Azurah found some of Nirni’s cubs in the forest and from them Khajiit were born under Masser and Secunda’s light.
Angered by Azurah’s decision to take so many cubs Nirni came to Y’ffer and ask for punishment. He did so turning the grasses to warm sands and forest to marsh.
Azurah loved her cubs and taught them the ways of the moons and the gift of shapes.
However not all her children were given the gifts of Azurah and favored Nirni. By her hand the fur was taken and the forest given. For Nirni also loved here cubs and their grandcubs.
Although maybe not M’aiq is very practical. He has no need for mysticism.
Buddhist, I was more Christian. Growing up in a fundamentalist church and becoming more intellectual drove me to ask big question that Christianity didn’t answer for me. Causes and conditions allowed me to encounter Buddhism when I was living in Japan and it’s 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 “supernatural” elements but it’s 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.
What makes you feel that way?
I think there are many very different ways to approach experiencing it. If my first experience was at a temple in my local area I would very much be turned away….
Because I feel like the Buddha had some pretty good ideas. Like I get that suffering comes from desire, I can vibe with the cycle of rebirth and renewal, etc. I just… I never got to the point where I was like ‘This is the one for me.’ Maybe because I didn’t investigate it all that deeply back when I was investigating lots of other religions around the world, I was always pulled away by other ideas in Hinduism or Gnostic Christianity, or Sufism.
I never heard anybody make fun of Buddhists or slander them, quite a lovely religion ❤️
That’s 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.
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
Me? Id say I’m currently agnostic, used to be Muslim, problem is, I’m still living in the Muslim country, so I just kinda act like I’m Muslim to avoid getting into trouble for my beliefs.
I don’t want to get too deep into it, I can write a whole essay about the religious attitude in my country and how I feel about it, but I won’t :>
Subgenius.
Was raised roman-catholic but got disillusioned pretty quickly. I was fairly religious in elementary school but by the time I was 14, I was agnostic/atheist.
Partially because my parents aren’t religious (my mum is from the GDR, so she didn’t grow up with religion and my dad seceded from church before I was even born) and even my grandma, who was the religious one (albeit never very strongly, compared to American catholics. More a „goes to church on religious holidays“ type of person), drifted away from church quite a bit after all the child-rapist priest shit that was uncovered at the time.
By now (mid 20s) I’d probably consider myself agnostic. Can’t prove there is no higher power but also, if there is, we wouldn’t know what religion – if any – is right anyways. It’s probably not christianity though.
I’m agnostic but read somewhere that maybe water is god.
You’re more psychotic than agnostic
You’re following me over from an article where YOU MISREAD how I was shocked to see Russia fucking their nation over instead of the US. And then you turned into a weird little Pro Russian cunt.
I think the psychosis is more on your end, Borat.
