Are you religious? Why or why not?

[ada@piefed.blahaj.zone]

No, I'm not religious. There's no elevator pitch, because it doesn't need one.

[argumentativemonotheist@lemmy.world]

Yeah. I didn't use to be but now I am, and I'm very happy about it. And why? Because God guides whom He wills, I guess.

[finjaminpoach@lemmy.world]

Yes because I find it fascinating and meaningful and I'm open to new ideas.

[sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml]

No but not for any hard reasons. It just never appealed to me

[godort@lemmy.ca]

No, but I try hard not to be an asshole about it. People can believe what they want as long as it isn't directly hurting someone.

Personally I find religious studies fascinating simply because of the influence it has had on culture both locally and worldwide.

[cosmicgoat@lemmy.ca]

I was very, very devout. After a long long while, I finally gathered enough courage to embrace apostasy (at no small cost). I'm much happier and healthier now.

[lvxferre@mander.xyz]

Not really. I was technically raised Christian, but [I'll be blunt here for the sake of honesty] theism as a whole always smelled like bullshit for me, since childhood.

And contrariwise to my nickname I'm not even Satanist. I played around its aesthetic in my teen years, but by then my beliefs were already "not quite a Monotheist, not quite an Atheist" already.

I don't really have a problem with religious people, as long as they aren't zealots. (The dividing line between "zealot" and "non-zealot" for me is attempting to convert me.)

[finjaminpoach@lemmy.world]

And contrariwise to my nickname I’m not even Satanist. I played around its aesthetic in my teen years, but by then my beliefs were already “not quite a Monotheist, not quite an Atheist.”

Tbh i don't get why anyone would ever profess to be a satanist if they don't believe in christianity. Satan is part of christianity... make it make sense

[zloubida@sh.itjust.works]

Yes. I was raised in an agnostic family (I'm French, and in France agnosticism is very dominant) but the idea of the existence of a creator always seemed like a certainty for me. I searched myself for a time, and I'm now very active in my (French equivalent of mainline Protestant) community. I'm not sure it's the “right” religion, I'm not even sure there's such thing as the “right” religion, but it gives me a framework to developp my spirituality while giving me the freedom to question everything. It's a sweet spot that makes me happy.

[hubertmanne@piefed.social]

No. I used to be agnostic but it relied on this idea that humanity was overall essentially sensible and large groups would not just believe some bs and then pass it on to their kids and it would keep going. I kept up this belief besides the evidence of obvious cults and such. The real nail in the coffin was the internet age and things like qanon, flat earthers, anti vaxers, anti maskers, etc. etc. Just how easily and quickly people whole heartadly believe bulltrump has brushed away any fence sitting I had left and I now recognize that the universe is wysiwyg.

[sylver_dragon@lemmy.world]

Are you religious?

No.

Why or why not?

I was raised Lutheran and went through the whole Sunday School and Catechism routine. Basically brainwashed by my parents from an early age to buy into it. At the same time, I was always a curious person and learned (also from my parents) to ask questions and be skeptical. By the time I was taking Catechism, I had started to notice the cracks in Christian mythology. Their version of the Christian Bible is outright self-contradictory in some places, and the rest of it has logical holes big enough to walk through. Eventually, I got stuck on two questions:

1. What proof do you have that the supernatural exists?
2. How does that evidence of the supernatural prove that your mythology is correct?

It never ceases to amaze me how many religious people just flat out don't have an answer for those questions, but damn if they don't want to bring up faith. "Faith" is not proof, and a god of the gaps argument is not useful.

I do find the study of mythology interesting and worthwhile. Various mythologies have heavily influenced society to this very day. We can still see various Christian, Jewish and Islamic mythologies having a heavy impact on modern world events. And the storytelling in many myths is interesting and tells us a lot about the issues a society was grappling with at the time the myths were created and the overlap between societies as they shared stories.

I'm also quite willing to partake in most religious celebrations. Any excuse for feasting, frolicking or fornicating seems worthwhile.

[marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

No. I was never raised on it and it doesn’t make sense to me. I think religions should be see more as a cultural thing than anything else and without positions of power involved. Organized religion with any type of power is just nuts to me. Spirituality and less dogmatic things make more sense though, it’s just us trying to understand the reality we exist in. It can be fun speculation, especially when drugs are involved.

[cosmicgoat@lemmy.ca]

Many forms of satanism, perhaps most?, aren't religious and do not believe in a literal Satan or in Christianity. Satan is used as a symbol of individualism, skepticism, and resistance to religious authority. For many satanists, it's less about worship and more about expressing values like personal autonomy and separation of church and state.

I have a lot of Satanist friends. I'm all for individualism, skepticism, and resistance to religious authorities, but I personally prefer to do it without all the satanic imagery. Just to tease, I occasionally remind them that their beliefs are too Christian for me. Haha.

[cosmicgoat@lemmy.ca]

I second the no thanks on "the god of the gaps." Very very important.

I've become a healthier and happier person after embracing my ignorance. Always learn. Always seek to know more. When the the data isn't there, it's okay. One need not fill the void.

Someday, we will have an answer.
Or, perhaps not. We need to sit with that as it is.

[deathbybigsad@sh.itjust.works]

I was born in China, I remember very early on, I was taught the concept of 命運 (fate), 投胎 (reincarnation), 上天 (the heavens) 睇住你 (are watching you), and 報應 (karma)... lot of that stuff.

My mom told me that if I "waste food", i'd 畀雷公劈 (get stuck by lightning by the "god of thunder"; or some bullshit like that)

A lot of Chinese drama has those spiritual themes

One time I was like: "so what religion are we?"

Then my mom was like 道教 (Taoism), but I was so confused like I thought it was 佛教 (Buddhism)?

So idk what ever the fuck their "religion" is?

My mom always said "唔可以全信但唔可以唔信" (you can't believe it all, but you also can't no believe any)

And she also told me the story about the tale of man that was "waiting for god to save him" when it was flooding" and said that guy was stupid

I used to believe in Santa, then I found out my uncle was the "Santa", so yea I just stopped believing. I used to believe in ghosts cuz all the Chinese ghost stories in media, but then I stopped believing.

I read a lot of Western Atheism stuff... Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins... so I believed less and less...

I still sort of hang on to the reincarnation thing as a sort of copism, well not the karma stuff, but more as in "matter cannot be created or destroyed" so it must be recycled, that sort of way...

We weren't able to see atoms for a long time, maybe there's a "soul" that we cannot yet measure? (I know atheists are gonna say I'm being silly xD)

Like the "fate" thing is just so bizzare. I wasn't supposed to be born as a second child during One Child Policy, so I feel like "maybe 'god' intervened and saved me?". So bizzare, I wasn't even supposed to exist.

edit: typos

[ace_garp@lemmy.world]

As it is 95% a hereditary construct, no.

[lvxferre@mander.xyz]

It's probably better if some Satanist answers this instead of me, but AFAIK there are as many answers for this as there are Satanists out there.

For a lot of them Satanism boils down to a set of moral principles; e.g. embracing individualism, non-conformism and carnal desires as virtues instead of sins. It's an opposition to Christianity on moral grounds, but it says nothing about agreement/disagreement on epistemic ones. (AFAIK most of those are Atheists.)

For some Satanism is more like an instinct of opposition, internal to the individual, that pops up across multiple religions; e.g. the Set from the Ancient Egyptian religion, the Asurāḥ from Hinduism, and the Satan from Judaism/Christianity/Islamism. And it's that instinct that they worship/appreciate/support. (I'd argue those are either Pantheists or Panentheists.)

Then for a few it's like "inverted Christianity" — the epistemic beliefs are the same (there's some guy called Yahweh creating the world, he create a guy called Satan, Satan backstabs Yahweh), but the morality is flipped (i.e. worshipping Satan instead of Yahweh).

So TL;DR: it depends, but for most of them there's no belief in the epistemic claims of Christianity.

[whitemonster@lemmy.today]

Wow! That's so interesting! Have you ever thought about what would need to happen to confirm or deny that what you believe is the “right” religion?

[whitemonster@lemmy.today]

That’s Awesome! How long have you believed in God and how did he meet you?

[unhingedfridge@lemmy.world]

No. Started in a Baptist family, but Mom died while I was young and Dad was less interested in the church, so I spent most of my adolescence not even acknowledging the hard questions of life. When those hard questions did arise, and answers aplenty showed their face, I was able to pick apart things in each religion that didn't make sense in order to keep myself from falling into the easy answers offered by others. Eventually, watching my grandma suffer from Alzheimer's gave me everything I needed to know about the soul and what makes each person themselves, so I found myself wholly stuck in an atheistic and scientific worldview.

Could there be something more? Maybe, but I can't see any of the existing religions fitting neatly into our cosmos.