Occasionally find myself envying people with faith and wonder how my life is different than theirs.
Pretty well, it lets me do things Jesus frowns upon and actually enjoy my life instead of being a spiritual slave to a human invention.
I can’t think of anything I do that Jesus would frown upon. Leviticus? Yeah, I eat shellfish and the like, so probably he’d frown, but I think the main complaint from Jesus would be that I haven’t given up all my worldly goods and helped the sick and poor enough – and I don’t think he’d be all that mad, regardless. It’s not like I’m trying to make profits off money-changing in front of the temple.
I agree, I don’t need some 2000 year old book to dictate how I live my life.
I will live my life on my own terms and if someone has a problem, they can respectfully leave my life.
Doesn’t doing all of the things you want to do still make you a slave, spiritual or otherwise, to a human invention? Your desires are created by yourself or others.
That’s not what being a slave means, at all, so no.
You can always pretend you have an imaginary friend to talk to and that they will make everything better. The only difference is that everyone claims they have the same imaginary friend. That club is always accepting new members.
I’m a full-blown atheist. My dad died a couple of years ago and I “talk” to him frequently simply because I’m accustomed to doing it and it’s a nice thing to imagine. I know full well that there’s no magical way he’s still around and listening to me, but humans gonna human and there’s nothing wrong with having quirks like that.
I recall reading a study a long time back where researchers put people in fMRI machines to monitor their pattern of brain activity and then asked them to consider some kind of ethical question. Some of the subjects were told to talk to an attendant who was physically present, some were told to talk to themselves about it, and some were told to talk to whatever deity they believed in about it. The brain activity patterns for talking to someone physically present were different from the brain activity patterns for talking to oneself, but the activity patterns for talking to oneself and talking to God were identical. It was a neat result.
Edit: It’s not exactly as I remembered it, but given how human memory works I bet this is the article I was thinking of.
I just talk to my animals. Good enough.
I have an intern. Whenever I am confused or angry about something at work, which is often, I just talk to him. Something isn’t working that should be, explain it to him. Demonstrate how I am right and the tech is somehow wrong. In the process I usually find the solution.
He technically doesn’t report to me he reports to the general manager. I have told the general manager on multiple occasions that he is to please do whatever it takes to keep him here because production would grind to a halt.
Get an intern.
And their imaginary friend demands money and hatred of others.
To be fair, most peoples’ imaginary friends happen to hate all the same people that they do.
It doesn’t. I don’t think about it at all, honestly. Faith doesn’t play a role in my life.
If anything, I feel it gives clarity to be aware that there’s no higher being, and secure app inherent meaning or purpose with life.
Shit happens for no particular reason, and not because of fate or karma or whatnot.
Good stuff happens because of skill, hard work, and fortunate circumstances.
Actions have consequences. Not understanding this, or blaming some religious aspect, is stupid.
I can’t imagine going through life thinking that everything I love and/or desire will send me to hell or whatever. Imagine living in fear because you think someone is watching and judging you. No thanks.
I don’t see any advantage to having any kind of religious faith. Seems like it just limits your options and gives you nothing in return.
Be aware that most of what you see as happiness and comfort is actually just performative - they see that everyone around them is “happy” and their minister tells them if they follow the rules they will be happy. So they don’t want anyone to know how imperfect their lives are, so they pretend they are happy, and say all the right words and jump through all the right hoops.
Then you dig deeper and find that all their kids had kids out of wedlock, one is being abused by their spouse and is cheating on them, one disavowed any responsibility for their second kid they had with a second person who they weren’t married to…
You get the idea.
It isn’t all a front. The truth is that some religious communities do provide community to people who otherwise would be alone. But they are just groups of people with a shared hobby, not some kind of magic.
I grew up in a superficially religious household. This is spot on… it wasn’t a bad childhood by any means but soooo many things that deserved critical thinking or just accepting the pain of the situation were handed over to The Almighty. There are probably some decent coping skills buried in that level of faith but I don’t personally think it’s worth the cost.
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Spoiler alert: most people don’t really have faith, especially the ones screaming at you loudly how much they have it.
When you realize that, you’ll see that people are a lot more similar across all religions - authentic/thinking people from any background at all on one side, vs. those who merely “inherit” their beliefs without every really challenging them at all on the other.
Right now there are many people leaving a religion and going to atheism so much like lemmy/kbin it has that “early-generation” ring to it, but give it a few hundred years and dumb people who inherit it will just as dumbly smash others over the head with that non-religion as people have for countless millennia with past religions.
My advice: KEEP QUESTIONING! If you happened to come from a Christian or Muslim background, there is 1 Thessalonians 5:21 that literally commands that, therefore asking questions is in no way contradictory to whatever “faith” means - and anyway how could someone have that if they did not even know what it meant?
I agree, I think that a lot of people who are raised that way are afraid to question. Hell is a pretty terrifying consequence for those who believe there’s even a possibility that it’s true. So I think a lot of them are trying to go through the motions just to rest assured that if they call themselves Christians and followed certain rituals that they’re safe.
Deciding I didn’t believe in hell was the first step and the rest of my faith quickly unraveled after that.
What’s really weird - and I hope you take some comfort in this rather than be offended - is that you stand with Jesus in thinking that. I know, extremely ironic right?! :-P
“Do not heap heavy burdens upon others without offering to lift a finger to help them…”, “Pay the worker their due wages, immediately not waiting until some other day…”, “Consider the poor and alien among you as one of your own…”, a lot of Christians would be shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED (well, they shouldn’t be all that shocked) to find out what lays hidden in that B-I-B-L-E that so many claim to cherish.
Like somehow the church-going, cis-het family-man with 2.3 kids and a picket fence Obama is the Spawn of Satan while the oh-so-pious Donald tRump who shits on gold toilets and doesn’t even drive his own car in NYC but instead flies above the common man on a heli is “God’s Man”, as well as a “true man of the people”, “he gets us”? (to be clear: by “us” I mean “them”) Uh… nope. The Bible has a few things to say about False Doctrine as well… flee from it!
So like, even if you believed in hell, and in fact all the more so if you do, then that’s all the more reason to not be a bigoted asshole, not less!
Jesus was okay with honest sinners - but the ones he HATED the most (in fact, the ONLY ones He hated), with an absolute PASSION even, where the Karens of His day, aka the “super-Christians” of the time, loudmouthed bigots who literally killed Him b/c he kept trying to like feed the poor and shit, claiming that they were just as good as the Religious Leaders (and in fact way better).
There is some sunk costs fallicy involved here, with people being terrified of having wasted part their life in addition to wanting to stay out of Hell.
I feel like, at their core, most religions boil down to two things, for most people:
- Giving you purpose/security/scapegoats (“I’m living a good life so I can go to heaven,” “the Lord has a plan/is watching over me,” “Satan/sinners/demons tempted me”)
- Dissuading you from inquisitive, critical thought (out of self-preservation, I’d imagine)
Personally, I prefer to define my own purpose, live a more “dynamic” lifestyle than is traditional, think critically, and question authority. Doesn’t make me “better” than religious folks, in fact they’re probably overall happier than I am. But I can’t imagine living that way, regardless of whether or not I believe in a magical sky Santa who can’t decide whether he loves us unconditionally or whether or not he’s actually omnipotent.
There’s that, but also along with it comes an enormous sense of community. It’s a lot easier to find friendship and companionship when you’re in a group dedicated to a purpose that meets regularly, and it’s a very attractive concept and feeling, even if people don’t realize it.
I can relate to this. I’m a full blown atheist, someone who just doesn’t have any doubt on their beliefs for religion.
Even then, when I visit my besties Eastern Orthodox Church once in a blue moon (probably for a significant personal occassion or learning a new Holiday I never celebrated), I still feel an overall sense of community at her Church, and it helps that everyone i’ve met there is so nice.
I don’t believe being a Christian (especially a conservative Christian) is the lifestyle for me, and I just can not bring myself to believe for a moment in it, but even with that, the vague sense of community is still there. Makes for a pleasant trip at least.
For sure, there’s no community as large and passionate as religion. BUT there are other communities that are centered around goodwill to others, living a better life…some of them even have chanting, if you feel like you’d be missing that part lol.
Those communities usually involve doing work though (volunteering, performing, teaching, etc.) while you can just show up to church and kinda pay attention, and you’re in.
Think about dressing up and going to some service every week and being pressured to pay and extra social tax. That will make you feel better.
Being forced into it due to family will feel bad. But if nothing else is going on, people might actually enjoy it. I have seen churches in the jungle and the mass on weekends was like a social happening like a party people were looking forward to.
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What do you mean? Faith in a better future? My friends? The christian god?
I think you’re actually looking for a different question to ask - “what do people with faith have that I currently do not?”
For me, personally, I found it to be a sense of purpose. In reality, life has no inherent meaning; we reproduce and hope to pass on our genes before we die. That is the one common denominator across all life on Earth. Faith tends to be an easy answer for giving purpose because you now live for God/Jesus/Yahweh/Allah/etc, and have guidelines for what one should strive to have in life. It’s an easy way to avoid having to face such a thing and I honestly don’t blame people for it - take away all the human elements of it and life is just hard, boring, and meaningless. Faith gives an answer for everything and provides a guide on how one should life live, for better or worse.
However, there’s an upside I don’t think people realize in realizing that life has no inherent meaning: you get to decide what is meaningful in your life. You get to choose the people who you want to care about in your life, what you want to aspire to be, what you think is worth living for… you get to find and create your own purpose, rather than an external influence telling you how to do so. It’s not easy doing that, and it will be a struggle… but if you’re struggling towards something more in life, whatever that may be… then that’s a beautiful thing to strive towards.
I miss the sense of belonging and place that comes from rituals. While I don’t want to raise my child in the church, I’m trying to find ways to include ritual and ceremony in our lives. For example, I don’t want to pray before meals, so when we have a family meal I light a ceramic oil lamp to represent our time together.
I have an atheist Jewish friend. Me and him were talking and he mentioned really missing Friday night dinners with his family. As we were talking he came to the conclusion that I wanted him to get to. There was zero reason why he couldn’t still have Friday night dinners with his family. Just like there is zero reason why I can’t have a Christmas tree. He and his wife and children can all dress nice, sing a song or two, and have a big meal once a week.
That’s the great thing. There is no one keeping score. If you miss something about your religious background you can still have it. You aren’t going to lose atheist points. Especially for harmless family community stuff.
This resonated with me. Community and ritual without the religion
I know what you mean. I saved this blessing off years ago. I don’t remember where I got it, otherwise I’d attribute it to its author. It’s a great way to share that moment of reflection that prayer can provide without the actual religious aspect.
A Secular Grace For what we are about to receive let us be truly thankful …to those who planted the crops …to those who cultivated the fields …to those who gathered the harvest. For what we are about to receive let us be truly thankful to those who prepared it and those who served it. In this festivity let us remember too those who have no festivity those who cannot share this plenty those whose lives are more affected than our own by war, oppression and exploitation those who are hungry, sick and cold In sharing in this meal let us be truly thankful for the good things we have for the warm hospitality
and for this good companyLove it! May have to embroider this for the dining room wall.
I can’t prove it but I bet there is some value of spending a moment before eating being grateful for food. Acknowledge the person who made it and paid for it and the people you are with enjoying it.
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That’s the hope! The trick is inventing the ritual and getting it to stick.
I’ve never envied those with faith. I feel freedom and have comfort in knowing that I am a good person with good morals without being threatened by some mysterious being that allows such disgusting hatred to exist in their creation.
Exactly my take as well. Very well said.
Well it depends on what you mean. When I am being nice I define faith as “what I fear is not true”. I for example have faith in human potential.
If however you mean the typical meaning of the term I don’t envy them at all. I was born into a god-fearing home and I know exactly what horrorshow I left for good.
It can be a touch alienating; there’s a swath of rituals you’re now not a part of, either because you’re actively excluded or because you just no longer fit there (talking about church events and the like).
Conversations change just a little bit too–in the same way monotheists look at polytheists funny when they invoke more than one god, atheists wind up looking at any theist in the same fashion. By that token, when people realize you’re atheist, they look at you as a bit damaged–my bestie’s cousin blurted out “tf is wrong with you?” when I admitted I was atheist, for instance. In the US it only takes a look at some states’ laws on eligibility for public office to see that for some, the only thing worse than having a different faith is having none at all.
It can also be kind of disorienting; you spend quite a bit of time recalibrating your moral framework–what you consider right/wrong and why you take those positions. In this regard, it can be a bit draining too, dedicating so much of the processor sitting on your neck to a kind of reconfiguration.
Lastly and perhaps the worst drawback is how limiting it can feel: when there’s no longer a higher power to feel guarded by, you’re left with the realization that there’s just your own little mortal self and it’s depressing lack of influence.
But ultimately, I’ve found it kind of rewarding: ditching the need for a creator figure (and later, the concept of an afterlife altogether) has freed me of that dissonance that occurs when injustices or random tragedies occur. When you no longer lean on the idea that there must be an inherently just or attentive higher power, those bad things become a little less nerve-wracking.
And while I lose a some rituals and venues through which to connect with others, it’s a drop in the ocean compared to what’s still out there.
And that powerlessness we’re left behind with eases when we recognize there’s other kinds of power that come through community (nebulous as that concept feels right now).
