Asklemmy

Atheist, I never was interested in spirituality as I believe religions are population control tools.

However, I recently got the chance to meet Sikh peoples, and I understand they define themselves more as warriors than group of religious people. I just fell in love with what they are, what they represent.

Grew up in a very religious home, in a very religious country (orthodox christian). I don't think I ever truly "believed", but I didn't want to upset my family, so I got married in church and baptized my kids. I am an atheist, and don't practice any religion now.

I was raised in an atheist/agnostic household. Nobody ever came out and said we were atheist or agnostic, but no one went to religious services weekly or on holidays. There was never talk of prayer or worship or god.

Both my parents came from different religious backgrounds. One parent is Jewish. The other is Christian, though I would argue that their parents were atheist/agnostic as well.

We celebrated the holidays that involved presents, Christmas, Hanukkah and Easter. I didn’t really learn any of their religious symbolism behind these holidays until I was much older and it wasn’t through my parents. Part of it was cultural osmosis, and part of it was curiosity about these religions when I figured out what they were.

My parents basically refused to explain anything about religion to me, even when I was curious just to understand what was being referenced.

We lived in a pretty big Jewish community or so it wasn’t uncommon to get invited over for Passover dinner at someone’s house.

I went to Synagogue with Jewish friends and church with Christian friends. My friend’s mother taught classes at their synagogue so I do remember going and learning about Judaism and the holidays there but I didn’t last very long. I didn’t really enjoy it, I remember not wanting to go back in after our little recess/break and watching Fiddler on the Roof.

When I was curious about Christianity and wanted to know why my friends went to Sunday school or church on the weekends, my mother took me to a Unitarian church. We didn’t attend for very long and I don’t remember being particularly interested or involved in any of the activities they were doing for the kids.

Now I would say, I am firmly an atheist.

Discordian

Im a romuvis :3

Used to be an atheist before ig

Atheist, universalist Unitarian. Other people's theism is just at the bottom of my priorities these days lol. UUs seem like nice people

Atheist

Raised non-denominational Christian to Agnostic to Gnostic-curious.

Agnostic Satanist. It's basically the same as humanism but also triggers religious fundamentalists.

I also read the bible extensively and have a bible app on my phone with bookmarks to tell people how Jesus was most likely gay and so on. Most religious people didn't even read their own damn texts haha

I guess at this point I should consider myself a buddhist.

I was raised in a Christian household in the us midwest but never felt drawn to it or any form of sprituality, over the years Buddhism in its many forms kept creeping up on me enough times and explaining things in such elegant ways that I eventually looked into Tibetan Buddhism more closely and realized that once you understand how the symbolism of it all works in terms of connecting the words of practices to actually useful life tips then it becomes a great benefit to yourself and others.

As simply as possible, I chose this route because it is like becoming a scientist of experiences and all the practices we do are things that prove what we experience just as a scientist forms a postulate, a Buddhist forms a practice that leads to some form of awareness.

born in islamic nation (turkey), family didn't really do anything to teach religion (except trying to teach Arabic), I got more and more estranged from islam as I did my own independent research using online sources of the Qur'an

I don't think I can be considered a Muslim anymore, I don't follow what is written down as a must, this actually makes me eligible to hell, and it is all so ridiculous for me now.

I've talked with a lot of people, self proclaimed Muslims but their beliefs are far more deist than anything else, but they still call themselves Muslims but with their own additional beliefs.

Another note, I haven't read hadiths, only the Qur'an. The Qur'an is very short and anyone here could read it, it's the absolute words of god so it is essential to follow if you're a Muslim.

My mom let me figure it out for myself. I wanted to go to mass with grandma so she let me.

I quickly figured out the nonsensical nature of what I was seeing. When I found out I had to do a bunch of extra shit before I could get in line for Jeezits, I lost all remaining interest.

Been an atheist since. Probably was around age 12.

The short version: It's complicated.

The long version: I fell out of Christianity at age 17 because I had hard questions no one wanted to answer, so they asked me to either stop asking or stop coming to church. I spent years and years reading everything I could get my hands on about religion in general and many major world religions in specific, didn't find anything I could agree with or that seemed true to me as-is, and ultimately decided to cobble together my own beliefs from the useful bits I found in others. So now I have a highly syncretic mix of components from many religions (plus some I cooked up myself) that feels right to me. It centers around the idea that divinity is a kind of all-encompassing infinite ur-consciousness/hive-mind of which we are all a part, that the world is an illusion that creates a divide between us (which is why we feel like individuals), but also within us (between mind/thought/idea and feeling/emotion/experience), and enlightenment comes from learning how to heal those rifts and not just realizing or understanding but knowing in your bones that we are one. In short: the truth is love, love is the union of self and other, of mind (intellect) and heart (wisdom), of order/stasis/death and chaos/energy/life, into the unified psyche of one all-pervading ur-consciousness.

Building your own belief system is not a path I recommend for most because it requires a commitment to intense introspection in order to develop self-awareness and a deep willingness or even desire to have your understanding and beliefs challenged and updated with new perspectives and information. But for me anyway it beats being an atheist (I was one for many years, despite my fascination with religion), though I'm not here to convert anyone. This seems true to me, and that's enough.

I firmly believe, with all of my heart, that religion is fucking bullshit

Discordian!

More serious answer: I never had one to begin with. Why start now? All it seems to do is sow division.

Organized religion is created as a mean to control people.

But we're on a rock in space that developed sentient life.. How the fuck ?

I never "did" anything, I just realised at some point that I didn't think that whole business was true (apart from the bits about being nice to each other). So I stopped going through the motions that I'd been taught to follow.

My privilege here is that I live in a country that is not very religious, where any religion is done in private, and my mum, who taught me a very forgiving and kind Christianity (emphasising all the things a religious right would despise), only cared about me being a decent person, not about what I believed.