Pastafarian. I've preferred alfredo to marinara ever since I was a kid and loved pirates. I just knew that my colander had a sacred use: as a hat!
Buddhism. I first learned about it when someone was discussing whether it's a religion or a way of life. They specifically mentioned that it doesn't necessarily prevent you from being Christian (which I was) at the same time.
3 years later and I disagree with that statement, to a certain extent. You could choose to ignore the "supernatural" parts of Buddhism and just learn from the lessons. But I think the more you learn, the more it just kinda makes sense.
For instance, buddhist believe in "re-incarnation" but there's a lot of debate about what that is. I prefer death and rebirth. Which I interpret as: I'm a different person than I was 10 years ago. The old me died and was reborn as what I am now.
Other things that I like about it: it is encouraged that you have skeptisicm about what you learn. I'm fact, you shouldn't just accept it because without questioning what your being told, you can not come to a true understanding and belief. The lessons all revolve around how to be a better person. How to achieve nirvana through your thoughts, actions, views, etc. Many of the principles were first introduced when buddha was alive 2500 years ago. Today, psychology studies have shown that many of them really do have long lasting, extremely beneficial effects. Think meditation and mindfulness (not necessarily invented by Buddhism, but popularized by it)
For me it really resonates. A lot of the things I care about are discussed. From mental health to treating life with respect to the environment to forgiveness. I also don't find much hipocracy.
Apatheism.
"Because God said so" sounds like a terrible rationale for morality to me. For that reason I do not think the existence of God is relevant to my life.
Raised mormon, did the mission thing, moroni's promise was bullshit so I switched to general christianity, realized that it's just another brand of bullshit. Currently agnostic/atheist/who cares.
IF there's a god, he's not a fucking primate with a sphincter- humans are so freaking narcissistic to think the "ultimate" being of all time is just like them.
IF there's a god, why would he be omniscient/omnipresent? You created this post, do you actively control how it interacts with people's minds?
IF there's a god, and he's the christian idea of a god, he's evil. No loving being would send their "children" to a test (omniscient, knowing the future) knowingly sending them to a place where the result would be them suffering for eternity.
IF there's a god, their existence doesn't answer the question of where we came from, what came before god? If your answer to this question is "god just always was" you're an idiot who missed the point.
Dudeism. Regarding what led me to identify with it, well, you know. A lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous, and uhh... lost my train of thought there.
None. My family and basically everyone in my rural hometown were on the spectrum from "quite" to "extremely" protestant Christian. None of it was compatible with my brain, none of it ever made sense at all. I've been areligious as long as I can remember and here's hoping I never get a brain tumor, because I'm pretty sure that's the only way I will ever become religious.
However, I'm a big fan of people retaining their full agency and that includes leaving people to believe whatever they want. I'm not at all militant and outside of the fact that a large percentage of the world's religious population would probably want me dead or, at minimum, thinks I'm incapable of having any sense of morality, or thinks that my children should be indoctrinated, etc. etc. Other than all that kind of stuff, I really do not care what they believe. Unitarian Universalists seem pretty cool though.
Currently none, I consider myself agnostic. Grew up protestant christian, left the church last year due to not identifying with its beliefs (and to save church tax). I have a casual interest in Buddhism, but don't plan on actually converting.
Atheist. Raised catholic. Too old, I realized that the god of the bible isn't a moral person. 1 Samuel 15:3 etc. Arguing with young-earth creationists gave me the final push, I understood science well enough to understand the implications of radiometric dating, plate tectonics, geology etc.
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Atheist, if you consider that a religion. I view it more as a lack of religion or belief, but that's just pedantry. I was raised a Jehovah's Witness, but eventually became disillusioned with their teachings as I grew older and realized that they were out of touch with the Bible and (more importantly) reality. After a period of self-reflection, I examined what I believe and came to the conclusion that I didn't really believe in much of anything anymore.
I don't believe in the Bible. It's a great work of literature, in an academic sense, but it's not something to model your life on. You can tie yourselves up in knots trying to come up with a coherent interpretation or you can take everything so figuratively that you might as well ignore the source material all together. I didn't see much point in either and just view it as a product of the wide range of people over the millennia that contributed to it.
I don't believe in God either. For me, I don't see a reason to think that there is a God. It's essentially impossible to prove that God doesn't exist. If you disproved one, people would just come up with either excuses or another God entirely. Some might argue that Earth's existence implies the existence of a creator. Assuming that was true, wouldn't the existence of this creator imply the existence of a second creator for the first? Why should we accept that God had no creator but that the universe had to have a creator?
There are other arguments, sure, but my lived experience has shown me no reason to think that there's a God or specific meaning, plan, scheme, or rhyme and reason to life on Earth. That doesn't mean we can't find meaning in our own lives, but it does mean we have to work to make it.
Nobody is coming to save us. Nobody is going to hand us an answer or salvation. We have to save ourselves.
I am an atheist.
Being raised under Christianity and having actually read the Bible like a book (as in just front to back like a novel; but boring) is what led me to it.
Reformed Christian. I was raised in a Christian family, and always believed in the basic concepts of God, heaven, hell, etc. But I mistakenly thought Christianity was about trying to be "good enough" for God until my mid teens. Around this time I realised that I couldn't be perfect, which was super distressing for a time. But then I read Ephesians 2:8-9 which says:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
This was a big relief, as it meant that I didn't need to rely on trying to be good enough for God. I just needed to accept God's free gift of salvation. That's the moment I would say I became a Christian.
Since then, I've had times where I've questioned it all, but I always come back to the resurrection of Jesus. I find the non-miraculous explanations of the resurrection account to be so implausible that it makes more sense to accept that it's a historical fact. And if the resurrection's true, then it makes sense to believe the rest of it as well.
Strong atheist. Not only I believe there are no Gods, I think religions are bad for humanity and society as a whole.
Atheist.
No arguments that I've heard for the existence of a deity have met their burden of proof. For some of these deities (the Abrahamic god, gods of most eastern religions, Zeus, Xenu), I actively assert they do not exist, while for others (e.g. a deistic god) I can't honestly claim they don't exist due to the lack of falsifiable claims involved, but I still don't believe claims that they do exist.
Militant agnosticism. I don’t know and you don’t either. Strong feelings don’t count as evidence. As long as doubt is entertained as equal to faith, I can get along with a wide variety of believers.
Technically I’m atheist agnostic. Once you’ve seen through one real-estate sex cult, they all start to look the same. So I’ve made my Pascal’s Wager. I bet my immortal soul that any being worth calling God doesn’t care what club I belong to.
Since the purported reward of worship is only received after death, it all sounds like pie in the sky to me.
Some sort of humanist atheism/existentialism? I guess...
As a teenager and young adult, I used to be very interested in cosmology and astrophysics, to the point I wanted to study it at uni. The vastness of the world and existence seemed like a beautiful enigma. I was also always interested in philosophy, which ended up more lasting than my interest in physics.
After growing older, the vastness of nature and existence seemed more and more haunting than beautiful. If there was something like a God, it had to be a mad idiot god. I actually kind of sympathised with Gnosticism and similar thoughts for a while, but I could not believe in a metaphysical, perfect entity waiting even further behind everything. I could not believe in some sort of salvation, that could just come to us by giving up on materiality. It seemed like an empty self-delusion. Similarly, I respect Buddhism a lot, and think there is a lot of good ideas within it, but it's ultimate life-nonaffirming philosophies and focus on avoidance of suffering did not resonate with me.
Looking at the history of our planet, our universe, and humanity, it seemed clear to me, that existence just stumbles along. We are a "mistake" in a vastness of empty, dumb, boring clouds of hydrogen and dust, nuclear furnaces and holes in reality, devoid of meaning. Life felt more and more to me, like a great rebellion against a vast, seemingly all-encompassing nothingness. No aliens in sight either, that could relieve us of our burden. Just humanity, as the one lifeform so far known to us, that at least has the potential to not fall into the traps of self-annihilation and lifelessnes that permeates our past and present. Just humanity with the responsibility of getting our shit together or life eventually being just reincorporated into the vast, dumb nothing of the "idiot god", so to speak.
All the mistakes of humans felt to me more and more like just extensions of the same stupidity that is also manifest in all of nature. And our struggle against it, feels like a sort of "sacred duty". Those loaded words to illustrate, that I'd think of myself as actually having strong faith in a weird way, even though it is not rooted in the supernatural as such.
It's also evident to me, this faith has at least partially persisted for me as an anchor for myself. I have not been suicidal ever since I felt that way, even though for most of my life I have been struggling with trauma and a variety of mental health disorders, and have been suicidal before. I could not think of that anymore, suffering seemed almost meaningless to me, now, and it feels better to endure it than to give in to the vast nothingness without a fight, without trying to create as much good as possible in this small contingent miracle that is life, that has been brought forth by so much struggle and so many seemingly impossible coincidences, chance and "mistakes".
I have a big aversion against beliefs that put faith into higher powers, be it nature or God or some sort of transdimensional aliens or whatever. I try to analyse beliefs like that not with disdain, though, but as results of how we are caught in the world we are, in our circumstances, and how life itself has had to "trick" existence itself into allowing life to exist, by follwing its rules but also emergently transcending them, creating something new from it, that is more than the sum of its parts.
Politically and philosophically it lead me to Marxism and Hegel respectively. Marxism with it's focus on changing our material foundations and dynamics, in order for us to be able to develop our humanity and be able to act more rational in the grand scheme lends itself well to it. Hegel, with looking at the development of ideas and humanity dialectically, developing something until it reaches the limit of its own contradictions also appealed to me.
Sorry for the wall of text, the question caught me in a somber mood and caused me to monologue.
I'm a Christian. I was raised Episcopalian, and still attend Episcopal services, but I have been a Unitarian (not Universalist) for a while. After a lot of thought and prayer and Pascal's wagering I settled on mostly following Church doctrine and the scripture but departing from them where I feel they don't makes sense.
Agnostic atheist. Sometimes I kind of forget religion even exists, it just seems like such a non-issue to me.
Hail Satan! God is dead.
Allegorical Christianity
In that, yeah, western pluralism is derived from a "Rhode Island" interpretation of tolerance from Jesus Christ's teachings in the New Testament. But waa the guy diety? Nah.
Was raised LDS/Mormon for the first three decades of my life. But gradually burned out of it as the church became more demanding and greedy -- and slowly evolved away from "Rhode Island" tolerance Christianity into a near- LGBTQ hate group. The church decided to die on that hill, and I left. I believe Jesus teaches me to be kind, understanding, and tolerant.
The LDS/Mormon church is basically obsessed over anti-LGBTQ acceptance and tithing (money). If it were on the Nasdaq, the church would rival Lockheed Martin in market cap. Yet they are hella stingy helping the poor and still demand even the church's poorest members to pay their "widow's mite" of 10 percent. It's downright immoral.
I’ve been reading a lot about Jainism
I’ve been vegan for a while now and the concept of nonharm as a philosophical/religious focus of your life seems very interesting to me.
The concept is basically just, do your best not to hurt anyone, human or nonhuman. Unless it’s in self defence. I quite like that idea. More people should try it.
Agnostic.
Was raised Christian, but I started becoming aware of how hypocritical my church was around my middle school years. Did some reading, talked to lots of people. Refused to keep attending church by 8th grade.
Then, I didn't think about it for a while. Probably not until college. Started looking into other religions, but they all kind of had the same sort of overarching issues I had with Christianity. Even atheism, I found to be a religious-like belief.
I was really happy to discover agnosticism. I felt like it really spoke to me. I really don't like the idea that we're meaningless and nothing, even in the face of how small we are in comparison to the universe around us. I also don't like the idea that there's a magic all-consuming being out there who made us as we are who we someday have to answer to.
I like science and saying we truly don't know. I find comfort in the fact that we haven't learned our origins yet (as in, all of creation, not just humans). I like the optimism agnostics have, as it's a natural state for me to be in.
Atheistic agnostic
I believe there is a higher power of some sort, but not one all powerful deity. I grew up Christian, but as I read the Bible myself I realized that it was basically fairy tales with absolutely no historical proof, besides some scrolls that are 3rd hand info.
One of my biggest questions about the Bible and Christianity, if Jesus went to the mountain to pray to god about what to do alone, then how do we know what was said/or revealed to him without being 2nd or 3rd hand info? Another question to ask, how do we know god is/was real? If he was don’t you think some prayers would be answered
I'm mostly atheist, bluntly, if a god, in whatever form you believe in one, exists, then either they don't care about humans at all, or will not help humans for any reason. To that end, my opinion is that whether or not a god exists, it doesn't matter, so I will proceed as though there is no God and make the best choices I can regardless.
I got to this point by making an objective examination of the available religions, which, almost all of them say that their God is the one true God, and all others are false; which obviously cannot be true. If all religions say that all other religions follow false gods then the majority of people/religions believe your God is a false one, which logically leads me to the conclusion that none of the gods exist, or at the very least it is impossible to know which is actually correct.
With no physical evidence for or against any religion, there's no tiebreaker... Therefore it is impossible to know, and without a way to isolate which may be correct, and effectively zero comment from God itself, then there is no correct decision, so I won't subscribe to any belief system that has no basis, beyond essentially a book of stories, to exist.
If God did exist, with all the false religion that exists (assuming one religion is correct), it would be logical to provide some way for humans to determine which one to follow beyond blind faith in a book of stores; this causes me to believe that if a god exists, they don't care what you believe, aka, there is no "correct" or "true" religion in God's eyes. But it's equally possible that no God exists at all.
All of this circles around the fact that, knowing whether God exists, and/or knowing what God wants you to believe, is impossible to know at best.
Therefore, QED, religion is inconsequential, belief in God is irrelevant, and believing in such things is, at best, superstition.
So instead, I behave the same or similar to an atheist. I'm more agnostic, but bluntly, I'd rather proceed in the same way as if I had no belief than allowing for the toxic mind virus of religion to be given any quarter. Frankly, religion has done, and continues to do so much evil in the world, that at this point humanity would do well to abolish religion. Societal progress and science especially has been set back years or decades, several times because of the influence from religion and it's followers; and society continues to be negatively impacted by religious zealots. IMO, it has no place in modern society, and hasn't had a place in society that serves any practical purpose for hundreds of years.
Religion is only holding us back at this point.
I'm an atheist. I find all the religious arguments deeply nonsensical.
Catholic raised. It was while studying St. Thomas Aquinas and his philosophy that I realized that the underlying philosophy was not very compelling... I then tried to find a more compelling source, but found Richard Dawkins instead.
Raised Roman Catholic. Broke away in high school. Went all-out atheists but explored options to see what might fit my world view. Eventually settled after a while on agnostic atheist (I don’t believe in a higher power but I don’t “know”). Also found that Zen Buddhism aligns pretty closely, but by this point I don’t care to put myself into a box anymore. Nothing is a perfect fit and people make assumptions
Transhumanist, non-practicing Antitheist
Raised Roman Catholic, broke with that after a classmate died out of the blue of an aneurysm (how could God let shit like that happen?), after looking through Buddhism and some Occultist stuff, realized that the main function of "God" is to be used as a prop to scam people. I've considered the Satanist Left Hand path, but I don't care about rituals. I'd rather follow the scientific method as applied to everything, and use it to extend and expand human nature. While theists still kind of nauseate me with a dash of pity, like seeing a dead kitten in the gutter, I'm up for positive interactions with anyone capable of maintaining one.
Pantheism/panentheism/Spinoza's God
found God through philosophy. now i'm deeply obsessed with Kaballah, Rosicrucians, and esoteric christianity. and Dmt.
Christ Consciousness (ego death) is good. institutional religion is corrupt.
Christianity is a leftist tradition.
I have no religion. I have no real spiritual belief. The little bit of "supernatural" I ""believe in"" is conjecture beyond the bounds of the universe, and are more like "ya I think this is my best answer for things" or "what if?" rather than an actual belief.
Within the bounds of the universe, I generally subscribe to scientific consensus, I'm not nearly smart enough to really argue against people who've spent their careers building upon the theories of those before them.
Christian. I have been a non-practising Christian for all my life until my wife and I was through some personal events. And since have I been attending church regularly.
I was brought up as a Reformed/Calvinist christian, I never could fully believe even as a child. Today I consider myself an agnostic atheist. I don't say that there definitely is no god or a higher power because I don't know, but for now I assume there isn't.
I don't want to convert anyone or take their faith away, so I only talk about my reasons for not believing if people try to convince me to believe.
Agnostic, raised Anglican but started questioning it in my late teens, briefly flirted with other religions and then just decided I was happier being agnostic. Still believe there might be something out there, but I've no idea what role that something plays in our lives.
Agnostic. I do believe in some cases religion has been beneficial to societies, but the way it's co-opted by mega churches and politicians, I feel like the juice is not worth the squeeze.
Atheist, thought a lot about it.
Agnosticism after doubting my way out of Protestantism in my teens. Major contributing factors were my parents' divorce (which was clearly the right thing for them to have done, as one was abusive) and realizing I was queer
I'm split damn near 50/50 on whether I think a deity or deities exist. Physics observations that suggest our universe is a simulation, and weird things about consciousness (dreams, deja vu, near death experiences, psychedelic experiences, cultural parallels in seemingly isolated ancient civilizations, etc.) fascinate me and keep me wondering what might be "up there." At the same time, studying biology made me realize the "power" of randomness over millions of years to "create" what people find meaningful without there necessarily having to be divine influence. Typewriter-monkey-Shakespeare philosophical stuff.
I really, really hope reincarnation or a non-hell afterlife exist, though. I am TERRIFIED of oblivion. :(
Roman Catholic here. I was born and raised as a Roman Catholic but there was a time in my life that I really wanted to put that to the test since I wasn't entirely sure if I truly believed in it or it was just something that I've known all my life. When I went to university, I took this subject called Medieval Philosophy which focused on the philosophical underpinnings of the Catholic theologians like Thomas Aquinas. Funny enough, it was being taught by an atheist who had a great appreciation for the philosophy behind Catholic theology. It was a life changing experience that not only strengthened my belief in God, but made me understand morality and humanity in a deeper sense.
Born and raised Muslim, but I think I'm somewhere between that and agnostic now? As a kid I was raised to be extremely religious, then leaned heavily towards hard atheism as a teenager/young adult, but nowadays I just don't find myself thinking about religion or the presence of a higher being. I don't necessarily believe that it doesn't exist, but I don't necessarily believe it does either, if that makes sense.
It gets a little more complicated since my family and community is Arab, and our particular form of Arabic culture is very closely intertwined with the religion, it oftentimes feels like you can't have one without the other. It gets hard to pick and choose which parts of Islam I want to participate in (especially considering there's a lot in Islam that I don't agree with) and still consider myself a "good" Arab. Hell, at that point can I really even call myself a Muslim? Who knows. But in my eyes religiousness is a spectrum, and I move up and down that spectrum a lot, and I think I'm okay with that.
Hindu, I believe in it because it actually makes sense. I know there is a lot of nonsense in Hinduism like it's there in every religion. Because religions are ultimately jsut tools to power. But i like Hinduism for some of the core beliefs. Some of the important things I like to believe.
- Change is the only constant in the universe, nothing else stays conatsnt.
- God is a construct that is unknowable by definition, it's larger than the largest thing, and it's smaller than the smallest thing. It's infinitly big and infinitesimally small at the same time.
- The morals of how to live life is not something that is defined by God, and God doesn't care one way or the other if someone follows any.
That being said I understand this is not traditional Hinduism. But I find this to the core with anyone that is willing to discuss Hinduism at length will reach at.
I had been going to Sunday School for a year or so and frankly the whole religion thing didn't make any real sense to me in explaining the world around us, humanity, higher powers, or anything. It was a lot of 'trust us' with no substance. So, I told my mum that I didn't want to go to church anymore and she said 'ok' - and we never did again.
I was four (almost five) BTW. At no time in the subsequent 50-odd years have I ever had any doubts about my atheism.
Raised protestant, went to catholic school, went Atheist within a year of leaving
Buddhism. Was raised Christian and my parents forced me to continue going to church even when things started to not make sense in early high school. Went from "You must go to church with us," to "You must go to church SOMEWHERE."
In college, I considered Islam, Taoism, and Buddhism but nothing stuck so I stayed with what was familiar. Finally came back to Buddhism a couple years ago and was like "Yep. This is it." To me, Christianity is a constant moving target that will never be reached in terms of what you're supposed to do and not to and it will generally always be your fault when bad things happen because reasons. It's something you have to carry with you your whole life.
When I first really started learning about Buddhism and learned that it's like a raft that you use to get yourself across the river and you out it down when you don't need it anymore, I was like YES PLEASE SOMETHING ATTAINABLE, EMPOWERING, AND MAKES SENSE.
Was Secular Humanist atheist 1998-2013 until converting to moderate Sunni Hanafi Islam to date law abiding london pakistanis. I quit alcohol 2006 and was straight edge before so very against intoxication. racist parents repeatedly tried to force me into according to northwell south oaks "incest" arranged marriages with uneducated feminists I have nothing in common with as an engineer.
I see no compelling argument for believing any particular religion.
I'll pick out the good parts of philosophy if you have any but I'll leave the dogma and rituals.
Raised Catholic. Am now a Deistic Agnostic.
Dunno whether there's a higher power for sure, probably won't know until I'm in the ground.
But if there is (and I swing more in the "yes" catagory than "no"), I choose to believe he made us like an artist makes his paintings or a clockmaker his watches: complete, with some imperfections, and (mostly) has left us alone to do our own thing. And the best way to know the creator? Through his works, basically by looking at the world and its wonders.
Grew up evangelical. Now I’m not “religious” but am “Christ leaning.” Like, I appreciate the idea of Christ and hope that whatever higher being there might be has some Christlike qualities.
I don’t know. I doubt. I hope. I do shrooms. I’m confident there is more to existence than we know. I hope to leave a legacy of kindness. I like to learn and experience as much as I can. Love wins and transcends. I think enjoying the universe is method of worship. All that shit. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Also, when I was religious I was an amillenial partial preterist which pissed off a lot of bible thumpers in my region. Felt kind of punk to adopt those beliefs. That Left Behind shit is weird and never helped anyone.
Currently I'm non-religious, agnostic, and spiritual in some sense. I was raised Christian, but broke away in my early teen years, mostly due to rhetoric I was hearing from Sunday school and the Church back when I was forced to attend. It also didn't help that my folks are biblical literalists. I was ridiculed quite a lot by my family for being an atheist. I left atheism some years, I had closed myself off to any spiritual or religious, but I thought to myself that it didn't have to be that way.
Recently, I figured out that I don't fit in any religion, but I do believe in spirits and reincarnation. I think I started to believe in spirits and reincarnation in the past 5 years or earlier, I don't remember it right. Then, in 2022, I tried to consider Brazilian Kardecism, Umbanda or Candomblé, but never felt that I was really attached enough to those religions to consider myself part of their believers. So I decided to follow my own individual spirituality and I'm happy with that!
None.
None. I was raised Lutheran and it never really was important to me, just something I was forced to do. I sorta liked the singing and community aspects, but by high school I was done with it. I try not to be a reddit atheist though, I honestly respect anyone whose religion brings them to similar moral conclusions as my own. There is plenty in the christian bible to get you there, helping the poor and the sick, giving up material wealth and living in common, but in america the vast majority of christians do not follow the teachings of jesus in any meaningful way, so I'm not too broken up about no longer being christian, and even the highly progressive churches have often been pretty culty in my and my friends' experience.
None, and growing up Southern Baptist. ‘nuf said.
I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
I was born into, but as I grew, I had to know for myself it was true or not. I did a lot of praying and reading, and one day received an answer to my prayers. In this case, the best I can describe is a flow of light and knowledge, and a confirmation to my Spirit that it was true.
From then on I've had more experiences, but that was the start, and that is why I continue on the path I'm on.
Nondualism. I looked in direct experience.
