What is your religion? And why do you believe in your religion?

[armidil0]

Atheist, but it's really easy to understand why.

I was raised Reform Judaism in Southern Indiana, in a very secular household. Being atheist very much felt like a normal transition. Reform Judaism, at least where I lived, was very relaxed and no one had a lot of religious zeal to try and convince me otherwise. I still celebrate the holidays and go to Friday night service when I have to (by being a Bar Mitzvah mentor) and I teach every Sunday but I try to dodge questions on my own belief when I can because I really like it there.

If Judaism taught me one thing it's to cringe whenever I hear someone call God a He. I was always taught God was outside nature and did not have a gender. That because of his special state we can't call God an "it" so we should always use God instead because we don't know God's real name.

EDit: They also taught me, well hinted at, that I can be Jewish without God by claiming Judaism is more a race at this point. Even though I will say I'm involved with Jewish culture, I reject that notion of race. I don't know what I would call myself personally. My friends call me Jewish, and I sometimes do that too because I feel like it makes people more relaxed than atheist do (people always want to debate me after I say that). Sometimes I call myself culturally Jewish but I feel like it's a copt out.

[Fat Mac]

I guess I'm agnostic. I don't think about the possibility of a higher power all that much.

[brAnthelAstgreenseer]

Believe in your parents .

[Sci-2]

There was a time when I tried to convince myself I shouldn't believe because there was no proof of God. Then I, let's say, "feel" the proof

Yeah, I kinda miss those days sometimes though atheism is an easier life in many ways. I spent a good 3-4 years "tripping" on religious ecstasy. I could see sunlight shining off of ice and be overwhelmed by the majesty of God's creation.

And the world orders itself into a mythic story in which you're a hero fighting to relieve suffering in the world, because all suffering is God's suffering and God is your closest friend - the author of Grace who whispers "I'm here" when you think you're all alone and "Yes you can" when everyone including yourself is saying "No you can't."

Good times.

[Eponine]

I seem to have been born atheist because years of brainwashing, the attempt to put a gut level fear of hell in me, the knowledge that my family would respect me less (and what lies unspoken between us, that they saw my adoption as a "mission"), and the threat of losing my community, even the person I thought was my best friend rejecting me... None of this could stop me from not believing, starting at age 10. And because of this environment, eventually it was necessary for me to say clearly and unambiguously that I didn't believe in any gods.

I think it's likely that in a less hostile environment I probably would have been fine with being a culturally identifying apatheist. That is, someone who accepted the label of my family's religion without practicing it or having it be an important part of my life or even believing its specifics.

Technically I'm an ignostic atheist. I don't believe there is a god. I don't know with certainty that there isn't a god but find it likely that if there is something with godlike characteristics, it's not easily packageable into the omni model.

[Francis Buck]

Atheist, have been since early teens. Combination of religious pressure (from school, not parents) and a life-long interest in science, I assume. My beliefs are actually pretty damn pessimistic (I don't believe in after life, no higher purpose, no free will, consciousness is basically an illusion), though I myself am a rather optimistic person. Even though I basically think I'm on a ride that I can't control, the illusion is powerful enough that I can just roll with it. To be honest the idea of non-existence bothers me more than a lack of free will.

[Balefont]

I'm an agnostic atheist. My reasons for accepting this position have been explained here in detail before. Mainly, it's because I see no reason to believe in the existence of god(s).

But but but, how do you not go around killing and hurting people and stealing?! How can you have any morals?!

[Robin Of House Hill]

According to my Facebook data, I'm a pseudo-pan-poly-mono-anti-theist, but hey, that's on the internet.

[Trebla]

Agnostic theist.

[Lyanna Stark]

I believe in Rock'n Roll, or is that too retro?

[Tellus Explorer]

I was born into the Roman Catholic religion. Then my Mom converted to Christian, and when I was seven she we were Jehovah's Witnesses.

I'm not going to insult anyone's beliefs, however I was not pleased with the amount of hypocrites I was guided by. So I decided I was done with religion. I don't consider myself atheist, but I find religion as,another form of segregation for todays people, another way to say 'if you don't believe what I do your going to hell' if I go or not, if I turn into something else after I die, or if nothing happens at all. I know I'm okay right now so I'm content with that.

[protar]

How is atheism explained by 'science'? Science isn't into disproving an unknowable.

Atheism is the anti-belief which requires the belief in God to be the logical opposite. They're both based on the existence and non existence of a hypothetical proposition. The reality is a belief in God 'proves' in their mind the believer exists, where both propositions are false. And the assertion there is no God 'proves' in their mind the asserter exists, where both propositions are false again. Neither have have any meaning because it revolves around the belief and disproving of an unknowable.

This proved self is an inhibited limited self as opposed to the fragmented, changing mind immensely more power beyond cliché and stereotype, but still that little twat self who wants to be omnipresent finds ways to prove it exists.

Atheists and theists both believe they prove they exist and so are the right ones, when it's just the scapegoating fallacy they're engaged in based on an unknowable, which makes it a nonsensical.

I misphrased it. It would have been better to say that Atheism is the only "belief system" that I see as compatible with Science. There's nothing in science which really supports the idea of a higher power. There are things which people who already believe use as confirmation bias but no actual evidence. Furthermore science explains how the world can exist without the need for a higher power. In that sense it meshes with and supports atheism very well.

[Gneisenau]

I guess I'm agnostic/skeptic/atheist/whatever. If you were ask me questions on metaphysics/epistomology/free will, I'd probably stumble and say I don't know.

[Datepalm]

I was pretty much raised atheist. Or raised nothing in particular, which added up to atheism. I've never questioned it, never wanted to question it and wouldn't know where to begin if I tried. There is no god. It's all good.

[Sci-2]

According to my Facebook data, I'm a pseudo-pan-poly-mono-anti-theist, but hey, that's on the internet.

Hmmm...maybe I'm there myself. I'm always interested in how people create their belief systems and what possibilities there are.

For example Idealism, the notion that everything is just Mind/Consciousness, is very intriguing. Kastrup is a young idealist taking up the sword. He thinks materialism is a fairytale and individuated persons are localizations of the greater Mind.

Same with the idea that the universe is made of Platonic math.

I don't think either will convince many skeptics - nor am I convinced - but I like the idea of people trying to come up with this kind of stuff in philosophy. And I don't know that we could ever distinguish between Idealism and Materialism as we very likely lack the ability to suss out the truth of everything.

Crazy stuff, but I like to think Leary - who misjudged the advocacy of LSD by miles - was right about this at least:

"Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities — the political, the religious, the educational authorities — who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing — forming in our minds — their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself."

[GallowKnight]

On my Facebook page I have "Tom Waits" listed as my religious belief, so I guess that's it.

[dornishscorpion]

I was raised a shia Muslim but now i'm basically a theist i follow no particular sect or religion.

[Gneisenau]

I was raised a shia Muslim but now i'm basically a theist i follow no particular sect or religion.

So like Avicenna ?

[Castel]

No one has Bakkerized this thread yet? This thread? You guys are slippin.'

I think everyone is busy dropping Rust into every thread in sight to remember Bakker. You know it's bad when someone starts out-Bakkering Bakker in the Bakker threads.

[Eponine]

I'm a materialist second and a pragmatist first. If it turned out that I'm wrong about materialism, I'll probably never know, but if I do, I'll probably behave in the same way as I do now. Bad shit happens to people who try to prove that materialism is a fairy tale using their own bodies.

This differs from religion for me because in religion, I was constrained to act a certain way by other people. Theoretically, I guess there's nothing philosophically stopping me from believing in Deism, except that it seems extraneous to what already appears to be real and the way things already appear to opperate.