Ask Lemmy

I believe it partially, I'm sikh and I think a lot of rules were based on them needing to identify each other or living in times of war, like keeping long hair and a beard, always carrying a kirpan (dull small blade these days used to be a full sized sword til the british forced changes)

Most of the shit is legit just telling you to be a good person because we all come from the same place and goto the same place. Energy, doesn't really have an afterlife, which I hated as a kid. Was so jealous other ppl get afterlifes lol.

I kinda like the concept, like the one omniscient god can't die or really live becaue they can't die, experince pain, or get hurt, so we live and exist to experience life/death, etc. for them. That's why once you stop caring about wordly desires you rejoin god.

Idk it's kinda fun and makes sense, kinda supports my personal belief that we all evolved to eventually become god like beings (not us but descendants millions of years from now)

Like if a god exists, they would set into motion all the events that need to occur for life to exist and eventually humans to evolve, but we aren't the final step or goal. It's like a simulation game where they know what combination of events leads to another god like being existing.

Or the more fun option is that time isn't linear, and whatever god is, is the furthest evolution of the human race and it loops back creating itself in a paradox.

Because I know exactly what death will be like. So do you. Think back to before you were born, there was nothing. There, that is death. Not much to be afraid of.

Santa's elves don't make toys, Chinese children do.

I believe in Pantheism. I'm not sure if its really a religion or more of a philosophy but in the end it makes the most sense to me. It doesn't have a fancy book or any rules to follow. Nothing really changes by believing in it either. Its just nice and it makes sense to me.

I'm an atheist but I think Zoroastrianism is cool.

The closest thing I have to a religion is Buddhism. I practice it. I meditate daily. I read about it. As far as belief goes, though, it doesn't ask you to have faith outside of believing that if you follow the practice you will see the results they say you will. The millennia old texts that it's based on are called Suttas. One of them, the Kalama Sutta, explicitly tells the villagers of Kalama not to believe it just because they are told it is so.

"Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,' enter on and abide in them.

Personally I have seen the results of my meditation in my life. I'm still early on the path, but it seems to be progressing as they say it will. I have developed, through a few years of practice, the ability to focus on the present moment and still my mind to the point that, at least for a short time, thoughts don't arise. I'm fully aware of where I am and what is happening, but my mind is still. It doesn't last for long, but with more practice it will. I'm developing what's called samadhi, a type of concentrated focus where, eventually, nothing interrupts your concentration and you can maintain it as long as you like. I have a ways to go, but it appears to be progressing as expected.

So to answer the question, I believe it because I have experienced it. Many of the parts I haven't yet experienced I suspect are true, though I will only understand and believe them when I do experience them for myself.

ITT: Atheists

I'm an atheist due Roman Catholic grade school. The teachings about religion were crazy.

I also went to Roman Catholic high school and college but religion was very miner. College required four religion type courses but including courses such as ethics and logic.

I've read through the Bible cover to cover three times. Amplified, NIV, and New King James with a copy of Strongs.

I'm an atheist now.

I have personally experienced librarians and they have helped me when in need.

I believe there is lots of important knowledge about morality etc. embedded inside religious books. This is why is is worth reading those. Also there is lots of shitty and immoral stuff i try to ignore. Why would I try to implement those.

The other important stuff is active community. A single person can only do so much good. But if you are doing good as a whole local community you can do project far bigger than you could pull off yourself.

So it was easy to decide to keep the religion I was raised in. This is the biggest religion with biggest community.

This is about my religious framework and why I have it. However I distinct between my religion and my personal believes. Personally I am ignostic (with I), so I think we almost never use the same definitions for God, Being, to believe, to exist,... I even hold an opinion, by what most atheists define what God is, most grown up Christians are atheists. And the other way around. I think we hold pretty similar believes but we use different meaning for same words.

I spiritually disbelieve in everyone's religion

I do not really know. I was not raised in a practicing family, and my country is very secular.

Philosophically, I'm agnostic. I'm not convinced either by arguments for or against the existence of God. I think a being which could exist outside time and space is not approachable by our reason.

But I can't stay neutral, the question is too important. And I feel the presence of God in my life. This feeling came first, and when I tried to understand it, I went to the culturally nearest place of worship, and it was Protestantism, and I felt at home. I read the Bible, not as a theology manual, but as the story of people who try to understand the presence of God; sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong, but their quest is mine, and theirs inspires mine.

I just have a deeply rooted appreciation for pasta.

I used to, because my parents did and I went to church and all that.

But then I started to actually think about it.

Now I don't believe in anything supernatural.
There are parts of nature we don't understand (yet) but I don't think there's any 'higher power' that created the universe, and especially not earth or humankind specifically.

Because I've personally met Jesus Christ. He's a 10,000 year old former cave man.

I want to have an afterlife. I study science, and sometimes I feel like there are things humans won't get in my lifetime. So I like to think that I can continue on learning even after I die.

I don’t have a religion, but consider myself to be “religiously neutral.” Either smart men from all over are running the same scam — or there are common bits of wisdom in most religions and there may be something to that. Either way, I ultimately believe in Humanism, I suppose. That humans are inherently good, or want to be, and/or enough actually are.

I do not believe in anything original myself. It’s all academic to me.

I don't

My religion isn’t really based on belief, just practice. And I do the practices because they make me feel better and more connected.

I believe in God and His judgement because I just do. There's something instead of nothing, and nothing takes considerably less effort than something to exist (no need to argue this, nor any way to do so, hehe), and for me the idea of a Creator makes entire sense and completes the puzzle. I believe in His judgement probably because of that inner morality and desire for truth and justice everyone has but many deny and avoid. Finally, I do because it makes me happy, and helps me tame the animal and just be overall a person I'm proud of being, one that walks his talk and is at peace with himself and others.

Of course, none of this just came to me, or at least not as well defined and convincingly spoken, this is all thanks to the words of the prophets and the word of God as encapsulated in the Qur'an. Jesus always made sense to me even as an atheist kid (I just thought he was a pretty clever and kindhearted dude, not, you know, "God made flesh" or whatever people believe in), Solomon should make sense to any adult with enough working neurons, Muhammad's message is basically just a reiteration and perfection of it all, a little bow that ties all of monotheism up. 👍

I rejected christianity sometime as an early teen.

I don't remember my full reasoning but I did not like the idea of getting up early Sunday morning to do the church stuff.

It never got replaced by anything.