Why don't you go to a church or why don't you believe in God/a god?

[Rhyis.]

I miss being a part of the community, though.

Start a book club.

... Church is a specific kind of book club already, so it won't be a new experience.

[Yuri-G]

There is far more evidence suggesting that modern-day religion is a function of mythology than that suggesting it is divinely inspired. And bitch if I'm gonna believe in myths it sure as shit is gonna be tarot cards and magic, not misogyny, racism and homophobia. Not only that but if you read up on the history of mythology you begin to see quite clearly how it flows from one era to the next with common themes that are expressed in remarkably similar icons throughout the ages. Why should I believe in Mary but not Isis? Or why not believe in both as one and the same; a manifestation of the universal human experience of motherhood. This is why I'm pagan; I find the patterns that underlie all the various mythologies throughout the ages far more interesting than the specifics of one religion or another. Those patterns are what make comparative mythology both beautiful and fascinating as a window into a particular aspect of the human experience that has remained essential over millennia, and as you research them you begin to learn far more than you do from any one particular religious text.


It's worth noting that I believe in a bastardized version of Clarke's Third Law. His law states: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In the context of spirituality, I extend that to mean that anything supernatural - any real supernatural occurrence that actually happened, I should specify - is only considered supernatural because we do not understand the laws of reality that would explain it. I have experienced moments that I would deem as close to the edge of reality as I am comfortable with and them some; I can accept those as being real without having to understand exactly how they happened.


Oh! And for the record. When I say I'm pagan, I mean it in the broadest sense possible. I do not dance naked around maypoles and slather myself with lavender oil to please some being whose existence I cannot verify. I do play around with the occult a bit but I don't expect it to be anything other than play. People take that shit way too literally/seriously, on both sides of the fence. Play, after all, is where the numinous element of mankind thrives the most.

[thetruepandagod]

Your post triggered me so hard I had to find god just to beg him to end my suffering.

[Yuri-G]

Oh please tell me you're not joking. That would be the best Christmas gift I've gotten in ages <3

[thetruepandagod]

Sadly god is either a pussy or doesn't exist because i'm still alive.

[Cantih]

Oi, Egon asked an earnest question, lets keep poopdeck shitposting out.

[Gabai]

To me, it's a nonsensical proposition for there to be a caring being who simultaneously loves and abandons. The mental gymnastics required to consolidate the contradictions inherent to religion are such that I find no desire to engage in them.

[thetruepandagod]

Oi, Egon asked an earnest question, lets keep poopdeck shitposting out.

He asked a shitpost question in an earnest manner. There is no evidence of God and it's requirement of a blind leap of faith is one of the pillars upon which it is founded.

Just the knowing that religion is largely regional and that humanity existed before any of it is enough reason to be skeptical from a purely analytical point of view, not to say the inherent contradictions such as the problem of evil or questions such as are gods laws moral because he laid them upon us or because humans have a sense of morality inherent to them and relate that upon his laws. It's a stupid fucking question worthy of shitposting especially when fucktard pagan shit gets involved. This might as well be a census with a vote at the top asking if you grew up in a religious household/country as a child. I'm ashamed that there are people posting that their problems of belief arise only on the human end of religion such as pedophillic popes, hate mongers, and the institution rather than the very God in their books who would by all accounts be considered a malicious monster in view of our modern moral lens. This would be a lot more interesting of a thread if anyone here subscribed to a non-Abrahamic religion, but no one does unless you count pagan-roleplayers who might as well be extreme harry potter enthusiasts.

The thing that really perturbs my verbs is that anyone cares enough about religion to even think about it, you can't prove it or disprove it. Your only interaction/thoughts on it should be how to navigate a world in which there are believers and how to best fit them into a healthy society with the least amount of friction possible. My entire view on God in regards to my personal life is "I don't care." and that i'm glad it makes my mom happy.

[kuronosan]

I grew up Protestant, became Catholic, then stopped practicing altogether when "confirmation" came into the picture. I just can't resolve the cognitive dissonance created when people want you to pray for a miracle then say "It's up to Him whether he answers or not". Well if it's up to Him and it's His plan, then why would He listen? Why do people pray for their enemies to be smote? To me, religion seems like a selfish way to get people to stop questioning why bad things happen and what we can do as humans to fix it. It takes the power out of our hands and places them into a deity's who sends mixed signals about what the next step for humanity should be.

I personally feel as though religion tends to make people pious and hypocritical, despite the good moral lessons it preaches. It's a social contract that basically says "Be good to people, unless they don't share your beliefs and then fuck em". I mean, I can't resolve for myself why people think abortion is an abomination yet they do jack shit to help the poor or those that can't afford kids. Nope. They're whores who should have kept their legs shut. They're people who just want handouts.

That attitude to me is the very antithesis of what religion and spirituality should be about. If you're about helping your fellow man, then use your brain and help them. Stop looking for excuses to suppress them like "bible says the gay is bad lol".

[Byrthnoth]

Religion as an institution does not necessarily need to be based on a literal interpretation of religious canon.

My church was fairly liberal (particularly for Catholics) and was more focused on taking care of the downtrodden than punishing the gays/abortionists/etc. I did not actually hear even one reference to that part of the Bible until Evangelical Christianity went mainstream, and even then I heard it in the media rather than in Church.

Much like Jesus's socialism is ignored now by many alleged literallists, the hateful and or stupid parts of the Bible also could be ignored. If you reduced all of Christianity down to a "do unto others" guideline, you would have a pretty rad hippy religion.

[Rhyis.]

Just the knowing that religion is largely regional

Just to reiterate, and I suppose to go further into my original post, with the exception of America only 3rd world countries have a strong a religious upbringing as the norm. China, Japan, Europe in general, Australia, Canada, etc are the least religious countries in the world. As an Ontario born Canadian I can tell you it's socially bizarre when someone does go to church.

So yeah, again, this is an American question.

[BaneTheBrawler]

I grew up going to church somewhat sporadically, and while I enjoyed the music, I've never really felt anything from it.


My relationship with God is between me and God, and nothing anyone else does has any bearing on that. Nor does church.

[Bweigelt]

Well I grew up in Western Canada (Saskatchewan and BC) and came from a non religious family. In fact I don't think religion ever came up as a topic. As a child (like 4 years old) I was fascinated by dinosaurs. I basically learned all that I could about them, went to museum that had a ton of exhibits on dinosaurs all the time, and read and had my parents read stuff about them to me all the time. There was a Full scale robotic model of a T-Rex at our museum in Regina. I was both terrified and in Awe of it. Then when I was 8 I had slept over at a friends house on a saturday night and they were going to church the next morning and asked if I'd like to tag along. After the service which I found tremendously boring, me and my friend were put in like a little sunday school thing where some Woman was going over the history of the world for the kids. She told us it was 5000 years old which didn't jive with what I'd been reading about the dinosaurs and everything I'd been told up to that point. When I asked her how it could only be that old but dinosaurs could be millions of year old she told me that dinosaurs weren't real.

That pretty much killed any chance of me becoming religious or believing a word they said. I couldn't just wrap my head around the fact that I should just ignore things I could see and examine like the Fossils and just believe whatever they told me. Since then I've tried on occasion to examine the existence of god with an open mind, but it simply doesn't line up with any kind of rational thought. I can't say for sure that there isn't some kind of driving force behind the way the universe works, but I can pretty safely say that a god in the typical christian sense does not exist.

[Jefe]

I was born and raised Roman Catholic. Only thing is that I don't go to church.

[Ksandra]

Religion as an institution does not necessarily need to be based on a literal interpretation of religious canon.

My church was fairly liberal (particularly for Catholics) and was more focused on taking care of the downtrodden than punishing the gays/abortionists/etc. I did not actually hear even one reference to that part of the Bible until Evangelical Christianity went mainstream, and even then I heard it in the media rather than in Church.

This was my experience growing up. I miss my church back home. Very non-judgy and really focused on the good works side to things.

[Psion]

For myself, I actually was born in a christian household, and grew up believing in god. rather strongly in fact, i was a devout believer, even trying to convert classmates. (much to their secret annoyance, im sure.) i read the bible, went to church and even wednesday night gatherings every week. i prayed at night and was nauseatingly well behaved, not even swearing. I didn't even know what words like bitch meant until i was in my mid teens, and when i heard someone mentioning condoms i thought they were talking about condo houses. THATS how innocent i was. in middle school.

then i hit puberty, and started to notice some of the guys in my classes. it felt completely normal, until i told one of the guys he looked nice. that was when i first realized what puberty was and quickly discovered that the new feelings i was having meant i was gay... a sin according to my own beliefs.

Before then i didn't even know what being gay really meant. all i knew was that they were "bad people" and sinners and that they were going to hell. when i discovered i was suddenly one of those "bad people" i did the first thing that came to mind: prayed for god to heal me of my sin, to help me get past it. thoughts of Job and his trials flashed through my head, and i was determined to get through this trial... and then a year later i still was the same, unable to stop my feelings, fighting against what felt so natural to me. then my parents discovered i was gay. after a terrifying and angry confrontation they decided to help me get past this, which led to more prayer, fasting, and even a church exorcism. none of it helped, but for their sake i pretended i was getting better... and also because i was afraid to acknowledge it wasnt. forward a year or so later, as a high school freshman, i was still gay and hiding, and utterly miserable, to the point of contemplating suicide. the only reasons i didn't attempt it were because i was afraid of dying, and ironically, because suicide was also a sin against god. The crisis built, while in the meantime, i was essentially a loner without friends and hiding in my books during recess. Then one day, a girl came up to me and commented on the book i was reading, saying how she loved the author and suggested some other great stories i might enjoy. we started chatting and before i knew it i had a new friend. That friend then introduced me to her two other friends, all 3 who turned out to be misfits as well. we hit it off and soon we had our own little group meetings in the library (where the girl actually worked as an aide) and elsewhere. being the good little christian i was, i tried to convert them, much to their amusement. eventually a year or so later i found out that all three of them were wiccans. (there are a surprising number of them in north carolina!) now, at this point i was feeling somewhat disillusioned with my own beliefs, and then i got punched with the realization that the three best friends i ever had, who were the kindest and most honest people ive ever met....were essentially the antithesis of my beliefs. they were the ultimate sinners, devil worshippers! (i'm sure they would have found this classification highly amusing) ...and yet, they were also the only people who ever treated me with kindness, who treated me as a normal person instead of some freakish beast that had to be avoided.

at that point something snapped. I realized just how sheltered and blinded by my own beliefs i had been my whole life. my life of absolute, black and white, had been shattered into a million pieces of shades of new sensations. suddenly i was no longer seeing black and white, but perceiving shadings and color to the world and its inhabitants. it was utterly terrifying, and yet... it felt more right than anything i had ever felt before. i decided that maybe i was being closeminded about my beliefs and started researching what being gay actually meant, not just from the bibles view, but from science's point of view. i was outraged and relieved to realize that being gay was natural, that it wasn't changeable, that i was perfectly fine being who i was. i started looking into other things i had been told was wrong all my life, starting with wiccans. i found out it was it's own religion, and was highly flexible in its beliefs. it wasn't all about devil worship (that was satanists, and even they aren't all about devil worship!) but rather the god and goddess, who could take on many forms. because of this, one could be both a wiccan and another religion, because wiccas beliefs didn't conflict with other religions... you were just worshipping the god/goddess in one of their many forms when you worshipped another religion. there was also an appeal in the threefold rule they followed- "do what thou wilst, but harm none, lest it come back to thee threefold". simple to follow, to the point. allowing freedom of choice, but warning of consequences you bring upon yourself if you used that freedom to the detriment of others. no wonder they were so nice to everyone, haha.

At this point magic suddenly stopped being a terrifying dark art of wicked satanists and started becoming something that sounded more and more... friendly? right? certainly it had its appeal, and i started reading books on mythology and fantasy often, and without guilt. i fell in love with all the different stories and lore from different cultures, their views of the world that colored their stories. then one of my bastard friends introduced me to final fantasy VI (III) and got me addicted. XP from my reading up on magic and its many forms i got the name psion, another term for psychic. the name stuck with me all these years. you could say its my true name, as the old me had died, and a new me had been reborn from my trials and acceptance of who i was.

eventually i started playing hooky going to church, as i started feeling the sermons ring false, feeling like i was living a lie when i was there. i had seen a world of colors, a rondo of light and shadow, and going back to a world of flat absolutes was utterly stifling. having gained a new perspective, losing it even temporarily was like having a limb amputated every week. eventually my parents found out and confronted me about it. i calmly told them that i no longer believed in their god, which led to more screaming on their part and accusations, including that i was gay. i confirmed with them i still was and was proud of the fact, which naturally caused them to blew a few gaskets. they eventually stormed off, and while shaken that i had actually stood up to them, felt proud and relieved that i no longer had to pretend i was something i wasn't. i was also utterly terrified at what i had done... i had completely cast off from god. there was no turning back. i had confessed the truth of my feelings to my parents and to myself.

that feeling like i was falling out of a sky lasted for a week or so. at that point i realized nothing bad had happened, god had not smote me in his fury, and i felt freer than i ever had in my life. i suddenly realized i wasn't falling but flying. that was the point i decided id never again fall into that same trap of absolute belief, of seeing only one side of life and people. it wasn't easy, and especially at first i started falling into that trap of absolutes (thanks, Ayn Rand! =.= ) but no longer constrained by my religion, i was free to use my imagination to try and put myself in the shoes of all sides of an issue, rather than what i thought was morally acceptable.

one of my musings led me to ponder what the "sentient jewel" in final fantasy XI really was. how could a rock be alive and sentient, a jewel that glittered in all shades of light? eventually i came to the conclusion that the crystal is us. each of us presents a facet of ourselves to the world at any time, whether it's our happy side, our anger, our jealousy, or other aspects of our personality. but those are just a part of us. just like a gem is made of many faces, but is one whole, we are the whole of our many different aspects. taking that conclusion further, i realized that giant sentient jewel was the entirety of life. all creatures, and each of us, is a facet on that jewel, and yet we all are connected as a greater whole, shining our light upon the Void, banishing the darkness. each of us flashes our own color, and it is that multiplicity that makes life so wonderful. diamonds are so beautiful not because they are clear, but because they wink with a million shades of light. without that, they'd just be pieces of clear rock.

That led me to conclude that love was wanting to help someone become what they want to be, not what you wished them to be. a good example of what happens when you try to force the latter is found all over southern california with coppiced trees vs those that are allowed to grow into their normal form,with some minor pruning to help them grow healthy. (hint: the former look like green lollipops) it also led me to conclude that when you try to force others to take on your own definition of whats right, try to make them become the same color as you, not only do you harm them, but you harm the whole, just as if you introduced a flaw into a crystal.

So while i don't really believe in "god" you could say i believe in that mothercrystal of life, a life that encompasses everything. i can't say i really worship it... because how do you worship something you're an intrensic part of? that just feels silly. but i do celebrate life in its many forms and embrace it, marvel in its infinite and constantly changing complexity. to live is to change and grow. to stay still and constantly worship a belief formed of words thousands of years set in stone,feels to me like you might as well be a stiff corpse yourself.

[thetruepandagod]

I feel like you need a friend to talk to because you make more walls than Trump.

[BerenTebogo]

I hadn't felt the need to respond to this thread, but now I do.

Holy fuck Psion, fuck.

[Psion]

sorry. chalk it up to being a loner all my life. ive talked so little most of my life that i'm having to make up for lost time ;x

[Rhyis.]

You spent a lot of time thinking about the deeper meaning beyond a fictional rock in a video game son.