• lemmyng@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Education. When I was young I grew up in a Catholic household, in a city where being Catholic is the norm, in a country that is very religious and superstitious as a norm. And then I had the opportunity to go on a student exchange and get immersed in different cultures, and I realized “these people have their own beliefs, a different religion, but they have the same ethics as me.” So I started leaning towards agnosticism - let everyone believe in what they want, to themselves. Years later I went to college, and had my first experience of Southern Baptist religion. That one rubbed me the wrong way. There was just so much disdain for anything different, so much “believe me because I said so”. That’s where I realized I didn’t believe in God, or the afterlife - I believed in ethical behavior, and in being good to other humans. The rest just fell into place after that. I really like Penn Jilette’s point: “I have no God, and I murder and rape all I want. And the amount of murdering and raping I want to do is exactly zero.”