Atheist to the core. I don’t even think about it anymore. It’s pretty pointless to talk about.
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This is all irrational. Your good.
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I have that fear, too. So I stay away. It’s too easy for me to become ‘miraculously religious.’
personally i don’t actually know what i believe anymore. i used to laugh at religion tbh but when i think of people who i wonder if there is a punishment in the hereafter. killing one person like a fight that gets out of hand or killing millions like hitler or stalin. there are degrees i think and would there be a punishment depending on the degree? ■■■■■■ if i know. there should be i think. …but i’m not very hopeful that there is. i think of religious texts and i think of primitive uneducated peoples trying to make sense of where they came from. i think we humans have an innate need to be parented by someone or something bigger than ourselves hence the benevolent god. i don’t know. if there were ever gods or godesses then they no longer give a ■■■■ i think. it’s all ancient history. the modern take on religion is new age, mother nature type. instead of patriarchal.
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im athiest, i dont believe theres a god etc but i can see the principles that religion like buddhism follow
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Yeah I don’t believe , just think its a big waste of time.
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Woah! That class sounds like total crap. Take African American Studies courses. They are interesting and fairly easy if your school offers them. It is important to be able to learn things about the Civil Rights Movement. You might also have an Eastern Religion course available. You’d probably enjoy that. I know I did.
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Magic and poetry are the only true “religions”. They are the original ancient “religions.” I put “religion” in quotation marks because I don’t think it adequately describes our spirits, our souls. Many modern people like to use “spirituality”, but, that to me is also a hollow word. Maybe, there is no adequate word; at least in the English language. I do think it really stinks to have to read The Purpose Driven Life for a class. The book is boring and really useless if you suffer from a mental illness. I tried to read it several years ago. I also believe that it is presumptious and prejucial for him to force his beliefs upon. It is sort of sort of like my pastor-uncle who circulated an e-mail after the cold-water bucket thing for ALS last year that his Christian demonination was doing it first (through baptism) I thought this was very self-righteous and hurtful. I was upset with his assertion. You must go with what works for you. To believe in some sort of higher power is a very personal thing that no one can force upon you. I saw a bumper sticker that said something like this: I don’t need a higher power. I have a cat. Please excuse my spelling. My medication, I think, is taking effect. Always remember to follow what is intuitively right for you. No one else is you. No one else has experienced you. You are your own truth. So it is written.
My Mom is a high school science teacher…
In her life… she has turned her trust to science when the chips have been down… so far… science has prevailed.
We weren’t raised with any deep religious roots.
I have no beef with the concept of god. When I was younger… I was sure he was talking to me. But when I grew up and got on meds… a lot of things in my head changed.
Our family has a Buddhist sort of vibe going on. Very live and let live.
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Rick Warrens son …
I don’t believe in mega media pastors that rake in millions.
I need to say one more thing. I do believe that the concept of Christian sin is very harmful to those with mental illness and to others, also. I have been a church-going person in my lifetime. At church, when they wanted me to confess my sins, my mind would go blank. I am not saying that I am perfect little human being; but then on the other hand maybe we are all perfect. It has just been forced from our minds like other human concepts by the ruling patriarchal Christian. ( I do mean to imply that men are bad, evil, etc.) I just have begun to think that this concept of sin has added to my psychotic thinking; not helped it and it may be harmful. I have met some compassionate Christian people. I live in the Bible Belt. There is a church on every corner and a Christian university in the town I live in. My father was an Army chaplain; but, he grew dissatisfied and demitted after the =Vietnam War. My grandfather was a teacher turned minster. My uncle is a spoiled self-centered university chaplain in Florida. As far as my uncle is concerned, he was afraid my mother was in danger of being harmed by me. That is because he came to visit when my mother and I were working on moving last year and was a burden to her and I told him so. He never did help my mother at all; although, he claimed he would. All he and his wife did was go shopping. When he came to visit and I told him what I thought; I used no curse words and did not threaten any bodily harm to him or his wife in any way whatsoever. My mother told him she did not feel afraid; although, we have our differences and sometimes, she cries to me that I have “hurt” her. I believe that my uncle is just one person most probably frightened of his own shadow. I guess he may be one of the reasons that I no longer go to church. But, I do reiterate the other things that I said earlier and what was repeated in my earlier post.
HEy,
Athiest for sure but I like some the the eastern stuff especially Taoism…I guess you’d define it philisphocially as one of those things where thought and body are encompassed by an all pervading theory we can’t describe…but that is the way!!
It’s not a religion…it’s thought itself I’m getting at!!!
A proud atheist in the struggle,
rogueone.
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Im not religious at all. If your gonna believe in something, believe in yourself I say
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Most Jains ( it’s a little similar to Buddhism )are atheists too I am but not practising.
I guess I could say I’m agnostic. Sometimes I like to think there is a god so I can blame him for all the horrible things that happen. It really helps me to complain to god, even though I don’t know if he exists. I do find it odious of Christians to tell us we’re going to hell for not believing in god when there is no sign of his existence. Of course, if there are multiple universes, as some of the scientists tell us, there are plenty of places for god to hide. Also, I find it unbearable that we’re supposed to be totally thankful to god when so many horrible things happen.
“No atheists in foxholes”. It means put someone in a situation where there ass is really on the line and they’ll find god right away. I pray to Zeus and Hera that I will win the lottery. Hermes once helped me pass a hard quiz.
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Yeah we are human. If I’m in a bad situation , I simply say ‘hope’ that’s as close as i ever get to prayer.
Also nick , it may seem intuitive to you that everyone turns to god eventually , yet the atheist demographic is growing from year to year. Do you believe they are faking it?
I very much agree with morti about TPDL. For me, it’s a tract.
I was raised Pentecostal, which was akin to what is now “charismatic evangelical,” as in Assemblies of God, and Calvary Chapel. God was supposed to be loving, but the packaging was everlastingly authoritarian, judgmental and morally perfectionistic. Most of these churches “love-bomb” the new converts, then normalize them over time to unpaid service and ruthless taxation (“the tithe”). Those whose minds have been somewhat “psychotized” elsewhere are likely to find themselves in deep doodoo before long.
I was able to understand just enough of what the defrocked priest who taught my first college philosophy class was trying to get across – and then learned about The Facts of life in the bars and brothels of the places they sent us to to Rest and Recuperate from the war – to bust loose of conventional religion.
But I couldn’t find “the answers” I was looking for in philosophy (or work, or sex, or romance, or money, or alcohol, or drugs, or, or, or) so I tried psychology. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t enough (“necessary” but not “sufficient”). Then came Buddhism, Hinduism and Sufism. By themselves – which is to say, “without the psychology” – I think I would have just gone off the deep end and wound up in more dead ends.
Fortunately, I ran into several “experts” who asserted that most organized religions are just the money-sucking residue of what was originally some actual spiritual truth. So I started back-tracking (I’m OCPD to the max) and found my way to the bottom line of those three organized religions, and later on, Judaism and Xtianity, et al.
I’m satisfied now that simply observing to notice to recognize to acknowledge to accept to own to appreciate to understand What Is (vs. What is Not) is at the bottom of all the “better” (and most Asian) religions. Church Buddhism leaves me as disaffected as conventional Christianity, btw. And I find almost every “deeply religious” person I encounter to be wholly out of touch with What Is… and mired in the muck of What is Not.
Jiddu Krishnamurti (who was anything but a “guru”), Joel Kramer, Arthur Deikman, Chogyam Trungpa, Eric Hoffer, Margaret Singer, Charles Tart and several others were hugely helpful on this voyage of dis-cover-y.
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