I was born and raised in an Eastern Orthodox Christian family. Became a theistic Satanist in the 1980s - more specifically a Luciferian. It even got me a conscription exemption. Still one to this day.
I am a lifelong atheist. I attend a very progressive christian church where I am open about my lack of belief. They seem to accept me, including the minister. I don’t try to convert them and they don’t try to convert me. I started going because I was lonely and I wanted some opportunities to do good. Their whole theology is about helping people and trying to change the world for the better. The two major precepts are “God is love” and “Jesus has no hands but yours.” They don’t talk about sin or redemption. We have a huge rainbow sign that says “All are welcome,” and we actually mean it. The minister talks about Jesus as a teacher, not as a saviour. We raise money and food for the local food bank, and provide community outreach to people, many of whom have disabilities. We sing. We eat cookies and drink absurd amounts of coffee. I suddenly have so many sweet old lady friends, and even a handful of friends my own age.
I’ve been athiest since I was a kid. The older I get the less I’m able to ignore religion, and the more anti-thiest I become.
Yup, I’ve seen religion directly cause far too much harm to excuse the small benefit it yields to some people. Especially fucking now.
I’m a closet atheist. In my country, apostasy is punishable by death. Thus, me being closeted.
I would delete this comment if I were you…
Don’t worry, the feds won’t get me, I’m different! /s
Just uhh, if I “dissappear”, then they got me 😔
If they do, we’ll never hear about it. I wish you the best of luck, friend.
None
I was raised Catholic but was never a believer. I’m atheist.
I’m an ordained dudeist priest.
May he abide over your happiness as he does us all.
Raised Scandinavian protestant which basically means you don’t go to church unless someone died or got married.
Left the Church to avoid the membership fee.
Answering this question is about 1/3rd of my effort I’ve put into religion 2024.
None of the large churches in Scandinavia (Church of Denmark, Church of Norway, Church of Sweden, Church of Finland) are Protestant, they are Lutheran.
“None of the felidae are animals, they are mammals”
Lutherans are protestants
I just tried to correct a misstake that some people may take seriously, personally, I don’t care.
That’s not a mistake
Lutheranism is a type of protestantism
Absolutely, I don’t deny that at all, but it is defined as separate from protestantism
Lutheran is a substet of protestant
Yes?
Just as Sweden is a subset of Scandinavia.
Sometimes subsets are important.
If you had asked me 10 years ago, it’d be a firm “atheist”. A year ago, “agnostic”. Today, I don’t identify with a religion, but I think there’s a lot of interesting things within them. Given a charitable interpretation of any of them’s texts, as well as looking at the parts where a large number of religious systems agree you can arrive at some pretty profound pieces of wisdom.
I don’t necessarily think these things tell us much about our origin, or what happens after death, or speak to any kind of deity. What they do speak a lot on is the human condition. What we value, what themes and motifs speak to us.
I don’t really like the terms “religion” and “religious”. To me, those are the organized, preachy kinds of almost-cults most of us here have problems with. I prefer referring to my own personal beliefs as spirituality. Where the two differ, in my mind, is that religion is found externally. Someone converts you, or you’re born into it. Spirituality is found through self-reflection. Some of the self reflection processes involves talking to and learning from others, but it ultimately comes back to a deeply individual assimilation of this new knowledge with the unique lived experiences you’ve had.
I don’t agree with organized religion. However the more I see the current nihilistic world leader situation and general care for others situation devolve, the more I see the appeal of a counterweight that at least appeals to a sense of morality.
Not that any church actually lives up to that. But it’s a nice thought that works leaders somehow would have to defer to some kind of moral administrator and people in general learning about compassion, unselfishness and forgiveness.
Yeah, I personally think “Atheist” and “Agnostic” to be a loaded term with the general public, more so in mine where the majority is religious.
Many of my friends think I abandoned all my moral code the moment they found out, like “No, I’m still the same person just not doing the ritual like I used to” and they won’t even notice if I didn’t tell.
Many did not believe me when I said I never drink even once (alcohol is forbidden in Islam). It’s so hard to explain that the general messages to aspire to be a decent human being are good guidelines I don’t have any problem with that, it’s the finer details that made me decide to leave.
Morality and religion are the same in society, broadly speaking. Any of the myriad interviews with a non-religious person being asked how they derive morality without religion is telling enough for that.
Science
I really hate when people equate them. science is not a religion. Is is the study of the universe in fact not in opinion and guesses.
I completely agree but I still think there’s an act of faith and belief in science because the vast majority of people will never understand most of what science has proved that they use in their daily lives, let alone the more advanced stuff that most scientists will never fully understand.
I’d say it’s probably on the borderline of faith. It’s less faith and more of a necessity due to the limited capacity of the human brain.
You build on foundational knowledge, and in science the goal is to question everything instead of blind faith in what you know
There’s a lot of atheists in this thread.
The question was: what’s your religion?
Atheism is as much of a religion as ‘off’ is a radio station.
I guess lots of people is just answering “don’t have one”
none, unless you count the the satanic temple.
no reason to bring fantasy into reality
Atheist/materialism, if you can consider that a religion.
Pastafarian
So my parents were Catholic and Atheist respectively. I have great respect for religious beliefs but am an atheist myself.
My town is very multi-cultural and due to the work I do, every year I am privileged to be invited to Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Jewish cultural events.
I can happily say that the main thing that always strikes me is the friendliness of ordinary people from all faiths and walks of life.
Non-participating Baha’i
