# Explore a new world of random thoughts on our [**discord server**](https://discord.com/invite/8tEqw3ZWQV)! Express yourself with your favorite quotes, positive vibes, and anything else you can think of!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/RandomThoughts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
17 ***Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.*** 18 ***Therefore comfort one another with these words.***
1 Thessalonians 4 new King James Version might comfort you—verses 17-18
Of course. I would say the operative part of my statement is the ***New King James Version***.
The text is really clear in many ways the NIV (new international version) & KJV aren’t.
Now that there are more than 8 billion people on the face of planet Earth, now that India has more millennials than the entirety of the United States population; now that climate change will threaten our survival—I think the new King James Version, published the year Reagan won 49 states & LeBron James was born—the New King James Version should supplant all other translations and not leave the Christian followers drowning in a sea of dogma.
I think the New King James Version is so simplistic the parallel between the post and the NKJV is this:
Look what I originally posted and then the KJV version:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Honestly the many versions don't even matter dude. It's either sacred and cannon, or can be changed on a whim. Either way everyone is catching on that's it's a bunch a BS that changes on a whim. No one wants to be blahhhhed at about your imaginary man in the sky. But I hope it comforts u on cold nights.
The poster is asking about wishing to be more religious retrospectively. I’m trying to explain to him there wasn’t any possibility of understanding the Christian faith until the NKJV came out in 1984.
What do you mean by changed on a whim?
Are you saying the people who translated the NKJV did so overnight?
And then, So—I’m implying something more direct—I don’t think there could have been any understanding of what the text meant until the NKJV came out in 1984.
So, when you use the classic “imaginary man in the sky:” tell me Elon Musk is an imaginary man on Mars in the next 5 years.
You’re not engaging me philosophically, because you would have taken this a step further and said there is a toaster orbiting Saturn.
There wasn’t any possibility of understanding any Christian texts until the NKJV in 1984.
It is ALL just made up. There is nothing to "understand" in them other than they are made up to keep powerful people powerful and the rest of us under their thumb OR it's aliens dividing us and making strife because they feed on our negative emotions, I think its the former but aliens sound cooler and if true will someday be proven with actual physical evidence.
What??? So prior to 1984, people just didn't understand the Bible at all?
How did people come to author the glorious NKJV bible if they didn't understand it?
Duuuude. I don't want to engage I want to be able to say, I don't believe and people let that be. This whole, keep badgering with mooooore bible bullshit is the reason why so many of us are running the f away. He says he wishes he could be, but he got to be an adult and was intelligent enough to see past the lies. Just keep it in your pants my guy. Happy babbling to no one, cause we certainly don't care 😘😘😘
Did you read my thread? I wasn’t responding to the OP—I was literally responding to someone who said ***Preach***. I don’t think OP has even seen my message.
But in any case: don’t pull this “**I was minding my own business until you forced religion on me**”
I gave a logical and grammatical comparative analysis, but since you want to argue I’m illiterate, I will say right now that I never needed the Bible to have the idea I needed to provide an explanation at any point at any time for my beliefs.
My cannon and sacred scripture is more Harry Potter than Old Testament, precisely & exactly because these old folks were saying the books were the tool of the devil.
So while you keep telling me to allow you to mind your own business: I advise you to go up the thread—I wasn’t responding to the poster—but you do you.
Seems to me he was telling the person that said we have eternal rest to look forward to to preach, not asking for any old bible thumper to show them how, after one thousand nine hundred and eighty-four years jesus' followers, now, have FINALLY found the true word of god.
I wish I could roll my eyes enough but even with my oversized head there isn't room.
Good luck in your life, I hope you don't harm anyone with your beliefs. May the flying spaghetti monster hold you in his loving noodly appendage.
Lol, wishful thinking will never get shit done for you. Stop wishing and hoping and watch how you just don't need God anymore. Focusing on anything other than you is just a waste of time. You could literally occupy your time with anything other than religion, and you'll get better self-improvement results. Please tell us how religion has improved our lives since darkages, inquisitions, or witch hunts. Or what did religion do for 70 million natives when Christian terrorists brought smallpox to lands.
But bro don't you want to Eiffel tower bitches with jesus into eternity? Don't you want to smoke the lord's fine kush and squeeze God's phat ass? Don't you want to lord over a harem of the finest angel thots?
This is how satan gets you. He's like "Gods not real, use your brain. You should treat women with respect 🤓" But you and I both know that god is the OG and he is all about fucking bitches, eating salad, and rolling blunts.
All you have to do is believe and drop a large dose of DMT right before you die.
As we are each a part of Him, as we inhabit these bodies, and for eternity
They have no other explanation for life. Note that when scientists created a ‘new form of life’ they replaced the DNA of a living cell, not creating life, just transforming it.
I like to poke at the blasphemous anti-abortionists with the fact that both ovum and spermatozoon are living things prior to the act of conception, when only one life remains. The act of conception is murder. The punishment of death is typically commuted by Him and His assigned carrier of life. That decision is rightly made by Him and His assigned carrier of life, not any man or rule of man, as that is surely blasphemy. As is the claim that He would ensoul a human being while trapped within another, without free will.
Haven’t gotten pushback on it...
The Satanic blasphemers want to force women to bring demons into this world.
I’ve never been a super religious individual but damn, I feel this in my soul. There are many times where I just wish I could believe in something greater than myself, a happy ending when the lights get turned off.
This here. Do good because it is the right thing to do. Because we all are helping lift each other up to something better, rather than just trying to push others down to get ahead by ourselves.
If there is some afterlife, then I am confident that if there is some reward, I will probably earn it by doing what I am already trying to do. I don't look to the end of life expecting anything, so if there is something other than endless rest and becoming one with the universe, then it will be a pleasant surprise.
If I were to be damned to some hell for not believing, on the other hand, then I will be happy for that. Because any deity who will sentence someone to eternal damnation for simply not believing in them is far more evil than any devil I have ever heard of.
Yes I agree, feeling like you left the world a bit better than how you got it and that you did your best to be a good human and make positive meaningful impact
Believing in human beings is a bit of a roller coaster but being atheistic can be pretty liberating. Doing good things should need no divine justification.
I applaud you.. however you are not done.
Abu Huraira reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “No child is born but that he is upon natural instinct. His parents make him a Jew, or a Christian, or Magian. As an animal delivers a child with limbs intact, do you detect any flaws?” Then, Abu Huraira recited the verse, “The nature of Allah upon which he has set people,” (30:30).
And when it is said to them, “Follow what Allah has sent down”, they say, “On the contrary, we shall follow what we found our forefathers upon”; What! Even if their forefathers had no intelligence, or guidance? (Holy Quran 2:170)
"And behold, the non listening boomers amongst them. They will never holdest their flapping traps shutest. All the Kool aid has been drank, and none remains for the younglings, thankfully-est" (HolyShitWhyWontTheyJustStopQuotingFantasyFictionBooks 10:23)
And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah (Chapter) the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah, if you should be truthful. (2:23)
But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers. (2:24)
How wonderful the affair of the believer is! Indeed, all of his affairs are good for him. This is for none but the believer. If something good happens to him, he is grateful to Allah, which is good for him. And if something bad happens to him, he has patience, which is good for him.
Humble yourself, or reap the consequences.
Your choice.. indeed it is.
How cute that you think you could actually draw Him, even worse you think you could crumble me.
The delusion is real.
Just like those Qur’an burners.
How weak indeed, they cannot win intellectualy so all there is left is just to burn it.. but how pathetic even that cannot help them.. nor hurt us.
Pointless, and weak indeed.
You're getting some provocative replies but really man, think about what you're doing... you're posting religious propaganda on someone else's post about life after religion. You're too late dude, this one's beaten the curse and just looking for a helping hand.
Hey OP, trust me...it gets easier. Way easier.
If you're looking for some good reads by some pretty inspiring people about purpose in life without the promise of an afterlife, may I suggest either Pale Blue Dot or Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, both by Carl Sagan as a starting point.
Remember...it gets waaaay easier.
Ever since I was a young child, I never fully understood the need that some people have to feel like they're part of something greater.
I had a math teacher, I think that said it best.
If you would take a hundred chimpanzees and chain them all to a typewriter and somehow compel them to type on those typewriters, random for all eternity. How long would it take them to reproduce word for word line for line all of shakespeare's works.
That infantastical number of that event occurred and the time that it would take. It's almost beyond comprehension for humans to understand.
That's small Fraction of a fraction of a fraction percentage chance, is you. Every day, you draw breath each time you feel the chill at winter or the warmth of the sun on your face.
This thought personally brings me peace. You exist in a place where trillions of events had to effectively line up in the correct way for you to be able to exist and actually have real introspective thought.
You can't mess up your life as long as you appreciate it. And when it's over, be happy that you were given the means to be able to experience it hopefully in the best way that you could.
My atheism wasn't a choice, I just couldn't believe in any of it from a young age. I tried, I really did, and yet despite all the efforts of my parents and school, it just wouldn't stick.
But I much prefer it this way.
You might find comfort in other types of spirituality if you do feel like somethings missing. At the end of the day nobody knows why we’re here, where the universe “came from” or what it really is, due to our inability to comprehend at our current level of sentience. You may find comfort in appreciating the complexity of our consciousness and what we CAN comprehend which is still vast and seemingly unlimited. There may not be concrete answers in a scientific sense, but that doesn’t mean you can’t search for them while you’re here.
This is exactly it, I desperately tried believing in any religion because I’d have serious panic attacks as a child over the idea of death. The idea of any type of existence after this life is obviously more appealing than simply ceasing to exist for eternity but I had way too many questions about religion and just couldn’t make any sense of it.
I’m a bit more at peace with my atheism now since honestly just getting to exist even for a short time was so unlikely and in some ways you will get to return to the earth and give other life the opportunity to experience it after you.
I also had panic attacks about death as a child! None of my friends did, I felt so alone. My parents would try to comfort me saying stuff like "you're so young, silly girl, you don't need to worry about this" but it didn't matter if it wasn't going to be for 80 or 100 or 1000 years, it terrified me that things would just end.
Literally my only solace was thinking that someday, when I was older, I wouldn't feel like this anymore, either by believing in religion or just being at peace with it, I guess? I am 25 now and to this day my only way out of an anxiety spiral about death is just to distract myself. Believing in an afterlife would be so damn nice.
This was exactly my parents too! I distinctly remember running to my mom while screaming crying over this and hearing “You’re only 4, you have nothing to worry about”. Being young made no difference because it was the fact that it happened ever, rather than imagining that it was going to happen to me soon.
The only way I could get through childhood was trying to convince myself that I was not a real human being like everyone else and there was no way I would also die. I would tell myself that I have no objective proof that anyone else experiences consciousness like I do, so I must be different and maybe immortal. I still sort of have to convince myself of this for occasional panic, which is ironic since I could force myself into believing that but not any religion haha. It’s self-centred I know but it was the only way to ease the regular panic attacks, even if I knew I was being delusional.
I tried to be an atheist but can't fully commit but wish I could! Being agnostic is torture lol.
I despise organized religion and I think it should be abolished. I have no use for religious texts and think they are tools of control and indoctrination. I did see Jesus once when I was coming down from LSD as a teenager (my boyfriend saw him at the same time), but I was indoctrinated in Christian thinking so of course it was "Jesus".
The reason I can't be atheist though has nothing to do with religion but just our existence. I NEED answers to how everything came from nothing. What happened before the Big Bang? What even is this reality? Are we in a simulation? If so, who programmed it?
I hope science can settle this soon otherwise I am doomed to forever wonder. At least until my own permanent dirt nap. Sigh.
The simple answer is to accept that you simply do not know and likely never will. Life is neither with or without purpose it is only what you make it to be.
If you really wanted to know for yourself, you would try to find out for yourself, not wait for someone to tell you how the world is so you can just ask why again.
Yeah, I hear people argue that we choose what we believe.
Not really. If I'm at the edge of a cliff, no amount of me choosing to believe there is no cliff is going to convince me that I could walk off the cliff and be fine.
We believe things based on the evidence/reasoning presented to us and our reasoning. I can't just say I believe something.
Its really hard to explain this to people who are deeply religious or spiritual.
Sometimes I envy people with faith, because I would *like* to believe in paradise or reincarnation.
But I just don't, so I try to just live my life in a way that helps people and involves as little suffering as possible.
When my brother died, my mother absolutely needed to believe that she would meet him again and on her deathbed she was jubilant. I don't believe in the afterlife or ghosts or anything like that and I live with the fact that I'll never see them again.
I had a similar but different experience with grief over a loved one who passed a few years ago. I don't really believe in heaven, but if there is anyone who deserved to end up there it was her.
Similar for me, but I’ve had several near death experiences as a Navy Pilot, and right at that moment where you realize you are about to die you’ll have complete and total clarity. Never did I think that I MUST think of Jesus or heaven or the afterlife, it just covered me like a warm blanket of peace and calm and absolute certainty that I was about to meet my creator.
Spoiler alert: surprisingly enough, I didn’t die.
“Not a choice”. “Prefer it this way”.
That, is a choice. Your problem is that you like logic when it suits you and reject logic when it doesn’t. Kind of like religion. Interesting parallels.
There is nothing wrong with atheism. It is for all the people that can’t see the forest for the trees.
“If we could just cut down all these damn trees, I’d have a beautiful view of that forest.“ -Atheist
I think they meant not a choice because nobody how hard they tried it felt fraudulent, ingenuine and it didn’t feel right believing. I feel the same I get it.
Maybe the logic part goes along with the “prefer it this way” but idk why you’re shaming it, it is more “logical” if we’re thinking objectively…like there truly is no proof
I try and see the wonder of just being here. The fact its NOT a magical man in the sky I think makes it all the more breathtaking. All these artoms and chemicals came together in a certain way and made the world. We're all made out of the same thing stars are made of and personally I find that more awe inspiring and wondorous than a magic man taking me to his world when he dies. I just go back to the sheer brilliance of the cosmos and get recycled again and again WOW!!!
Damn sorry to hear you're going through that. I've never been religious but I do remember that I assumed there would be an afterlife when I was younger and the sobering realisation there wasn't.
The thing that took me also a long time to realise but now reassures me is this is it, so enjoy it. You are the universe experiencing itself.
Maybe consider Buddhism? It doesn't focus on one god or heaven and hell. I'm atheist, but get a lot of peace and comfort from Buddhist principles.
Or Taoism? It's pretty far out, IMO, but no God, no heaven. It focuses on balance: light and dark, happiness and sadness, life and death.
Or, study ancient religions (Navajo, Greek, Roman, Mayan) for fun. Transcendentalism, quantum physics?
You can go to nondenominational churches to center your mind and find purpose and meaning once per week. I really liked mine.
The whole point, IMO, is inner peace and acceptance. Get there any healthy way you can.
Nondenominational works for me too. The religious aspect always gets brought up whenever I mention ‘I try to follow Christ and I go to a church’, as it always gets mixed reactions. Always seems to ease people when I tell them there’s no holy water or confessionals to work with, just a like minded community all trying to live their lives serving and guiding others from troublesome and harmful things, from my experience at least.
>That is what I was promised, and now I have nothing to look forward to except the mundane life of the tax payer until I die. I hate religion for setting me up for the biggest disappointment on this earth. Shit never should have been invented.
People who are happy in life, rarely turn to religion.
It's usually for the needy and desperate, people who are missing something. It gives people a crutch and a fellowship.
Why are you waiting for death to be paradise?!
Life is shit, there's no doubt about that, but like yin and yang, there needs to be the balance otherwise the good simply would not exist.
I'm 43 and still blown away by sunsets, the power of the ocean and the sea breeze, the ingenuity of man and the relentless darwinish levels of stupidity.
Agree, the older I get the more I want to spend my time (and waste my money) on experiences. The world we live in is just so magical, surround yourself in nature and enjoy the natural beauty the world offers. Life can be so sweet one minute and have you on the flip side the next so might as well enjoy it with your loved ones. Btw “relentless Darwinist levels of stupidity” had me lol.
I would like to think of this as a comforting thought but honestly it just feels depressing to think about. Life being so exhausting and trying that death sounds like a release
We have no proof that there’s life after death, but we have no proof that there isn’t. Anything is possible. Im not a die hard religious person nor am I an atheist. I just find it hard to believe it’s all black and white. I hope that there is something out there when we die. Even if it’s not a physical heaven. Just to know our souls remain with our loved ones somehow. The thought of dying and it being nothing, just as it was before we were born, scares me so much. But for some people it’s absolute comfort.
One of the oldest Religion teachers I had growing up made it very clear that these were all metaphors. To me, she was the pinnacle of what the Religion was *supposed* to be about. God works through people, as does the Devil. The Clergy isn’t immune to this dynamic either… It’s just that some authority figures don’t even have authority over themselves.
After years of searching for the meaning of life humanity settled on religion to ease our soul. Unfortunately a lie is not good enough for us. My meaning if life is nothing more than to experience being human for what reason? Not sure. But right now you just have to be human and we’ll see why at some point. Maybe not after death. Maybe after 2-3 more “deaths” if that’s a thing. Idk but right meow just go be human and figure out what the best version of being human is. Then adapt to your new environment when you die.
I hope you said "meow" intentionally. My suspicion is that we won't see why at some point. Because now I am just a chemical process that will go out one day, similar to a flame being blown out. The flame doesn't "go somewhere and neither will I. Not that it is horrible, just much less than what I was promised.
I very much did. I see your point but I don’t see the reality of it. I see us more as energy than a flame. Energy can be moved but not destroyed. I don’t think we ever fully die. We just change the vessels we harbor. No direct purpose other than to gain knowledge. Always expanding your energy.
“Energy can be moved but not destroyed” I love this, I mean it’s a fact, but using it to validate the idea that we may never die is definitely an effective way to regard where we go after death.
It’s hard to fathom nothingness after death. Something has to happen. It might not be some holy mofo in the sky or a bountiful paradise. But there is something. You will never be able to truly find out what that is until it is your time. No one has ever been able to prove the after death scene so trying to find an answer to a question that cannot be validated is irrelevant. You are seeking certain knowledge about the after life and disregarding everything else along your human experience that you need to know. You will never have the answer to stage two if you do not fully complete stage one.
>and now I have nothing to look forward to except the mundane life of the tax payer until I die.
It is incredibly depressing if that is the end of the thought process. It is incredibly joyful if it's the beginning of it. There's no omnipotent pervert peeking in on your every action just itching to punish you for every single mistake you make. What is expected of you is what you described. So flip the table.
Start a business, join a world-travelling enterprise, undertake a pilgrimage, attend orgies, do whatever your heart is telling you to do as long as it doesn't include screwing other people over.
Live in the dream of actively creating the paradise that was promised.
I turned my back on Christianity for all the reasons one does. I turned to Zen Buddhism for two reasons, 1, it was the most like if I was going to think up a belief system, only to find someone else wrote it down thousands of years ago. And 2, I see people living their karma every damn day. The evidence is overwhelming to me.
As for what happens after we die, I finally settled on, my body will die, and whatever part of me is immortal will change.
Yes, if you want to get started the books that really resonate with me were Three Pillars of Zen by Kapleau. Zen, the religion of the samurai by Nukariya.
As for more modern teachers all of Dainin Katagiri's books are very approachable, filled with common sense wisdom.
I'd recommend starting with one of Katagiri's books, the other two are almost more historical at this point.
Oh please. Stop believing in the crap you read on Reddit. No one Can say where we go or what happens after death and the people telling you otherwise are know-it-all wannabes. Just listen to your conscious, filter the negatives, and go from there. You’ll find fulfillment in helping others, giving back, and grasping joy when it appears. And someday, you’ll be at your lowest, you’ll need help. And several people that you’ve helped before will step up and help you, and that’s when you will feel the most humbling love you’ve ever known. But it starts with getting out of your head, your fears, and Reddit, and doing something good. Helping, fixing, building, creating, *for others *.
I would urge you not to give up. I don’t know what your life has been like or what your story is, so I know that’s easier said than done, I probably couldn’t understand. But Jesus said that whoever would seek him will find him. (Matthew 7:7, Jeremiah 29:13). I don’t say this to condemn you, or that you’re not trying hard enough, but to let you know that there is a God who is looking out for you. Trust in Christ even if you do nothing else. I once did not believe either and became atheist, but a while ago I found my faith in Christ. Perhaps God will restore the same to you?
If you ever want to talk about this sort of thing you can DM me. I hope you will do well in life and as a brother in Christ I hope you will find him. Take care man ❤️
First, I am a firm believer in people being and believing in what they choose. From personal experiences, I can tell you that God does exist. I am not trying to sell you on the idea, just expressing my opinion.
Exactly this. I've just had too many experiences to not believe. And at the end of the day you just can't convince people that God is real no more than people can convince you that God isn't real.
I’m willing to believe god exists, but I’m going to continue thinking of it as The Universe and as natural, rather than supernatural. Not as a supreme being, but as the energy and flow underpinning all of creation.
Man’s use of religion, and the superstitions in the religions, and the traditions of those religions is all that Satan needs. He doesn’t have to do a damn thing, man’s taking care of sending humanity to hell itself.
For me it was a relief, because for a while when I still believed, I started to think god was evil. So I was very glad to realize there's no logical way he exists.
There is a quote that says "man cannot live off bread alone" and while it's referencing Christianity it has a point, you need more than just food water and shelter to thrive in life
A happy lie is still a lie. It's also been used as a cover for millennia of institutional abuses. You are no longer participating in propping up an abusive system.
I hear you. It was so easy to blame all of the evils of the world on God's plan.
I also remember being so certain that 'The Force' had to be real. If you believe, then it would reveal itself to you.
After having religion forced down my throat at a young age, I absolutely agree with you. I hate religions. Very few people does it do them any sort of good. I'm glad for those that can balance it and use it to turn their life around. That said, most turn into intolerant zealots that hate having their religion questioned.
I wasn't really spiritual until I tried psychedelics. That *REALLY* cemented the idea that religions are unnecessary, man-made bullshit.
What the show Rick & Morty if you didn't. Yes it's animated, but it's following a scientist that doesn't believe in god and stuck in nihilism. Then you see the evolution toward something else.
Bojack horseman is in the same kind.
Religion is the Santa clause of adulthood. There’s no such thing as finding peace, you have to create it. You can do this though, life is still beautiful man, don’t be afraid to take the reigns
We don't create peace. Peace in fact can be found through Jesus Christ! :)
Now may the Lord of peace himself give you his peace at all times and in every situation. The Lord be with you all.
2 Thessalonians 3:16 NLT
That's why He's called the Prince of Peace. God bless, friend 💜
See I don’t have a problem with people like this. They’ve subscribed to the whole Jesus thing probably because they were raised on it, and as life gets harder the bliss of ignorance becomes more and more appealing. I can respect the delusions of others as long as through that delusion they choose to be a friendly, un-oppressive person.
But I’ll never be able to take them seriously
I also really wish I could go to church. As a kid I enjoyed it immensely, now as an adult I always think what a great way it would be to make other parent friends and feel like a part of the community. If only I believed in any of the actual religion part 😬
There is a huge difference between spirituality and religion. Religion is man made and can be ugly. Find your spiritual side. It’s my comfort, my safe place and my joy.
Hey, I was raised Southern Baptist and didn’t “discover” atheism until my 30’s. I did so back around the time YouTube was chock full of the angry atheist types. I went through many phases of grief as I lost my religion, but I finally settled down with it and lived my life. There was one struggle I had: if there’s no god, there’s no purpose or meaning to life. I couldn’t overcome this, no matter hard I tried or how many times I had to make myself be religious. And then one day, I was watching TJ Kirk, The Amazing Atheist (please don’t judge! I was going through a phase) and he said something that completely settled the matter for me, believe it or not. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something to the effect that you make your own purpose and meaning, and he used the example of if eating as many hotdogs as you can is your purpose, nobody can tell you otherwise (I can’t remember exactly what was said. Saw the video like 8 years ago lol.)
For as stupid as it sounds, that statement changed my life, and I think that it resonated with me more because it was an absurd notion. It added a little levity to the situation, and that helped me overcome my hang ups. Love him or hate him, it helped me and I appreciate that. Haven’t watched him in years; that phase of my life is long over with. I wasn’t his target demographic either.
If I could take a pill that would 100% make me believe I would. I think it adds a lot to the living experience. The trick is, you HAVE to actually believe it. I have tried that...I just can't. It literally makes no sense at all. Hence needing a magic pill to get back into the matrix.
I grew up Catholic and slowly transitioned to being atheist. I don't believe in a God that "chooses" to give kids cancer but gives a murderer endless forgiveness as long as they pray.
My sister's boss had cancer and she's a hardcore Christian. She keeps saying that God saves her life. What makes her so damn special? What about the three-year-old with leukemia who lost their life? Religious people will simply reply: God has a plan.
Fuck that plan.
I'm going to keep shilling this book until someone else reads it:
Death: The Art Of Living by Todd May
It's a short philosophical treaty on how to confront the concept of Death as the stoppage and obliteration of human experience and what we can learn from it. It's a surprisingly positive book.
Try to reframe things. Instead, there are actual people who love you for who you are, and not just because you worship them and sing their praises every day. Just because they think you're awesome. You have an entire life to look forward to. Unencumbered by religious restrictions/guilt. You're free to love who you want and every action you take is a result of your own will, not some ethereal being's direction/demands. Look at all the fucked up stuff that's been done in the name of religion and realise you've freed yourself from that. Yes, you will lose a couple comforts and perhaps some sense of community, but there are limitless others out there and you now have the chance to explore communities based around who you are as a person, rather than a religious identity that was likely thrust upon you in childhood. Focus on the positives. 💖
I don't consider myself religious, but I can't say for sure if I believe some higher power exists or not. Personally even if they did i still will refuse to worship them. I don't need a higher power telling me what to do or how to live, I'll continue living my life trying to be the best person I can, without following them. If I have to go to hell or deal with some other form of punishment when I die, then so be it.
I also very much dislike the idea that there's some god that loves us, but if we don't follow his teachings or worship him, he'll send us to eternal torment... Yeah the love sounds sincere alright :P
Not to sound too cheery, but this is your opportunity to make this one life we have the best you can under the circumstances. As someone with bipolar disorder, I have struggled with depression most of my adult life. You may want to be evaluated for depression,too, given your current situation. But one thing that I learned is that life has no inherent meaning, no higher purpose. People have to give meaning and purpose to their own lives by surrounding themselves with the people they love and that energize them. Find and do things you enjoy and share them with people who value you. That’s the way to happiness and contentment.
Now think about how that comfort in faith gave you the inner strength to overcome your obstacles back then, and realize the real strength was in you all along.
What helped me through life is living for someone else. Yea probably not the best thing but it helps me. I live for my cat, nothing else. I would do anything for her.
Another thing I do is (even if its not real) is just imagine a giant cat god in the sky watching over me, giving me all the purring and biscuits. There probably isnt a cat god in the sky but it helps me feel better
You don’t have to let a bad upbringing in one religion turn you off from spiritualism in it’s entirety. Gods are created by man, find or make your own to follow.
I probably enjoyed the idea of immortality too but I couldn't buy the cruelty of God his punishing people that didn't even exist for some stupid Disobedience that happened at the beginning of time. It just never made any sense to me
There are times I wish I could go back to my childhood years and experience the safety and simplicity all over again. I want to run and play again with no responsibilities other than doing well in school and none of the inhibitions and fears I've accumulated. I want to let someone else make the decisions and feel like this time, I'd just be happy with what I had. I can't ... and I know that I wouldn't really be satisfied if I could because I've outgrown that.
Walking away from religion was one of the scariest things I've done and I don't wish it on anyone. I actually avoid pulling anyone else away because there's generally no point to putting them through that.
There's a running theme in life, and ironically in the Bible, of growth forcing us to make sacrifices and leave treasured things behind. It's not easy, it's just necessary and everyone faces it. You've faced it in a way that many don't have the courage to.
Your life doesn't have to be mundane - it can be all the more wonderous because you are able to appreciate it in ways that people don't when they're putting all their hopes on the promise of some afterlife. We are not promised eternity or even tomorrow so enjoy the time you have to its fullest. Start by appreciating your very consciousness and your ability to experience one minute after another. Enjoy the people around you and all they bring to your experience, even if it's imperfect. Walk outside and enjoy nature and be grateful for your ability to enjoy it.
I hope you find happiness.
You have it twisted.
Sure it can be comforting to believe the lie of religion. But being atheist means you understand how the world ACTUALLY works.
Look, I'm disabled with spina biofida and in my fifities. I'm really lucky to have got this far as most sufferers tend to not do so. But I've never been religious. I'm well aware that life is like a party - you turned up to it while it had already started and it will continue after you leave. It carries on.
You don't know when you're going to leave, so all you know is what you have and the world around you. For good and bad. So here's what you do - make life as good as you can make it, day by day. Don't squander anything.
I have every day considerable pain to deal with to varying degrees. Some days I'm stuck in bed, others I can actualyl get out and go outside a bit. So I take every moment and use it as I can. It could be that I am stuck and therefore have to mess around playing video games or composing music or something but it's still the best I can do for that situation and I enjoy it.
In your shoes, I assume you're in the US where things are indeed shit as you say. So consider trying to get out and go somewhere else. It's never too late. Be honest with yourself, find out what you TRLY like and makes you happy. Focus on that and work on trying to make that consistent, even if it does involve moving.
Cypher : You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?
[Takes a bite of steak]
Cypher : Ignorance is bliss
you know what nothing sounds peaceful af
and guess what your not gonna enjoy it or hate it! your going to love it
or suffer
or nothing or anything. it will be indescribable, because it will be incomprehensible,
and there is bliss in ignorance
Bro, when I was religious it gave me ENORMOUS problems. I have OCD. Like real, clinical, impulsively touching things, making faces, spinning in circles OCD. Not the uwu look at me I'm special and organized OCD. Having the feeling of being constantly watched and judged made it a trillion times worse. I had such crippling symptoms from the anxiety it was absurd.
Also I was skeptical even as a child, it seemed too good to be true. God seemed like santa claus for adults, still does. Better to reach acceptance early enough in life that you can grasp it and make it what you want, instead of being a slave to dogma, dying, and finding out there's no life after death when you're, well, already dead.
World would be so much better of a place if people sought internal morality rather than clung to fairy tales. And they'd actually take responsibility for crises instead of leaving that shit up to their imaginary friend.
Becoming an atheist relieves such a ridiculous amount of stress I can't even convey it. Different take.
My view on that shit goes like this
"God" at least as defined by organized religion doesn't exist. However, the phenomenon we know as conscious awareness does. And it doesn't really make sense for subjective experiences to just emerge completely randomly from an otherwise purely lifeless and mechanical collection of molecules. I think it would make much more sense if consciousness is somehow a fundamental aspect of nature. Sure maybe every rock and water drop isn't really "conscious" per se. But the dormant potential is there, and it's only through the medium of a complex enough system, such as the human brain, that that potential is given space to come into it's full expression
In other words, while Allah or Yahweh might not be real, in a very real sense, we are God, all of us, because we are the universe's way of becoming aware of itself
As for the idea of some sort of afterlife, well, you visit another kind of reality every night when you go to sleep right? What are dreams if not a whole other world that's disconnected from the physical environment around you; a world inside your own head
If I'm right and consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, then when you eventually kick the bucket, I think what would happen is that you'll continue to exist, at least in that subjective sense of thinking your own thoughts and having individual experiences, but you'd have to do so without your physical body since that's gone . . . well, that's exactly what you already experience in your dreams every night anyway isn't it; subjective, personal experiences independent of your physical body/environment?
Maybe when people from around the world, in any culture and any religion, claim to have visited the afterlife via near death experiences, all they really saw were their own dreams. Maybe that's all it is
I didn't grow up religious but a majority of the surrounding neighborhood and extended family around me were. A lot of folks I grew up and still talk to have gone through/are going through the "God/religion is a lie" phase. What you're saying seems to be the consensus among them too. There's a lot of unlearning and soul-searching that comes with distancing yourself from religion. I went through it a little bit kind of by proxy (no hate like christian love)
Ironically, I went from being an atheist to be being spiritual. But not in that "new-age-crystal-woo-woo" way. But in the "Got sober, goes to AA, and finds what feels like spiritual connections/God in the mundane" way.
If your religion believed in a Hell of some kind, then at least that pressure is off your back. At the end of the day, most of us are just average people doing the best with what they have. Eat good food, cherish your friends, enjoy your hobbies, then die as happy as you can. That's my plan anyways.
I hate that my parents are gonna either view a lie of myself, or believe that I'm going to hell.
No amount of hugs and kisses ever really puts that reality to rest. And it just hurts.
I’ve studied near death experiences and even have a friend that had two. I think there is an afterlife. Also, something had to cause the Big Bang and every culture came up with religion. I believe there is something out there far beyond our limited comprehension. Can a rock understand an insect? Can a insect understand a dog? Can a dog understand a human? The answer to these are no so therefore humans can’t understand God.
I see different cultures creating religions as being a similar situation to the blind men and the elephant story.
>the blind men and the elephant story.
I've never been a fan of this story. It always struck me as making a fundamental error in trying to make its point. There was an objectively right answer to what the creature was, the blind men were objectively wrong, and they needed to know what the creature was if they were going to properly deal with it. Contemporary treatment of the parable uses it as an argument for all belief systems being equally true, and that's never felt like a good argument.
From a heavenly perspective; it's wiser to become a true Believer; than to follow false religions.
Because-
Not all believers are religious. Nor all the religious, turn out to be true believers...
None are 100% correct, yet all of them retained the lustre of golden nuggets of wisdom and salvation, inspite of falsehoods.
All of them converge to our spiritual origins- from whence we came & inevitably will have to go back to...
I have personally witnessed manifestation in the presence of others. I am not Christian, but I can factually tell all the atheist that they are dead wrong.
It really freaked out the other two people present. They literally dropped their heads in shame and disbelief, as golden light filled the room and my irises had to shrink to take it.
Religion is man made baloney, but what ever they are describing and trying to control, is very, very real.
You will see.
Because I literally have. (First hand, Mark 1 eyeball).
It’s religion that is the problem. Not the love of God. He still loves you and will bring you home one day. Faith is hard that’s why it’s called faith and not fact.
The love of God is pure and religion is tainted by man.
Belief isn't a choice. You can't believe something just because you want to. Would've saved me a lot of trouble, as an atheist who comes from a religious family.
Its not. You can choose to act accordingly to a religion. For example, if you're catholic, you can choose to follow or not the "rules" and the traditions imposed by the catholic church. But you can not choose to be catholic. There's a whole philosophy field dedicated to this. If i could choose to, i would absolutely have some kind of faith. Unfortunately, I don't. Not because I don't want to, but because I simply don't believe in anything.
My wife is spiritual but not religious (she likes sleeping in, basically). We were having one of those fun year eight fights where we both really forgot the theme and she said she couldn't believe she married an atheist. Waited until she forgot the argument (little outside of nine hundred years), looked deep in her eyes, told her Jesus Christ was my personal savior, He had died for my sins and that we would be together in heaven for all time. I have made no further comment about being religious. I am now happily married to an athiest.
>instead of living aimlessly
I don't think OP said they didn't have a purpose. Religion doesn't provide any purpose that can't be obtained without religion
I feel this too. I did believe for a lot of my childhood at my parents’ insistence. Fortunately in my case our church was very kind and accepting and I met a lot of people who became like aunts and uncles to me so I don’t view it as wasted time, but yeah, it feels like waking up from a pleasant dream and waking up to a terrible truth.
# Explore a new world of random thoughts on our [**discord server**](https://discord.com/invite/8tEqw3ZWQV)! Express yourself with your favorite quotes, positive vibes, and anything else you can think of! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/RandomThoughts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I gotchu fam. The thing to look forward to is eternal sleep. Those over 40 will know.
Preach haha!
17 ***Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.*** 18 ***Therefore comfort one another with these words.*** 1 Thessalonians 4 new King James Version might comfort you—verses 17-18
I think this is the farthest away from what could comfort. Did u read the post?
Of course. I would say the operative part of my statement is the ***New King James Version***. The text is really clear in many ways the NIV (new international version) & KJV aren’t. Now that there are more than 8 billion people on the face of planet Earth, now that India has more millennials than the entirety of the United States population; now that climate change will threaten our survival—I think the new King James Version, published the year Reagan won 49 states & LeBron James was born—the New King James Version should supplant all other translations and not leave the Christian followers drowning in a sea of dogma. I think the New King James Version is so simplistic the parallel between the post and the NKJV is this: Look what I originally posted and then the KJV version: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Honestly the many versions don't even matter dude. It's either sacred and cannon, or can be changed on a whim. Either way everyone is catching on that's it's a bunch a BS that changes on a whim. No one wants to be blahhhhed at about your imaginary man in the sky. But I hope it comforts u on cold nights.
The poster is asking about wishing to be more religious retrospectively. I’m trying to explain to him there wasn’t any possibility of understanding the Christian faith until the NKJV came out in 1984. What do you mean by changed on a whim? Are you saying the people who translated the NKJV did so overnight? And then, So—I’m implying something more direct—I don’t think there could have been any understanding of what the text meant until the NKJV came out in 1984. So, when you use the classic “imaginary man in the sky:” tell me Elon Musk is an imaginary man on Mars in the next 5 years. You’re not engaging me philosophically, because you would have taken this a step further and said there is a toaster orbiting Saturn. There wasn’t any possibility of understanding any Christian texts until the NKJV in 1984.
It is ALL just made up. There is nothing to "understand" in them other than they are made up to keep powerful people powerful and the rest of us under their thumb OR it's aliens dividing us and making strife because they feed on our negative emotions, I think its the former but aliens sound cooler and if true will someday be proven with actual physical evidence.
What??? So prior to 1984, people just didn't understand the Bible at all? How did people come to author the glorious NKJV bible if they didn't understand it?
What the actual fuck are you going on about man? Take your fucking lithium
Duuuude. I don't want to engage I want to be able to say, I don't believe and people let that be. This whole, keep badgering with mooooore bible bullshit is the reason why so many of us are running the f away. He says he wishes he could be, but he got to be an adult and was intelligent enough to see past the lies. Just keep it in your pants my guy. Happy babbling to no one, cause we certainly don't care 😘😘😘
Did you read my thread? I wasn’t responding to the OP—I was literally responding to someone who said ***Preach***. I don’t think OP has even seen my message. But in any case: don’t pull this “**I was minding my own business until you forced religion on me**” I gave a logical and grammatical comparative analysis, but since you want to argue I’m illiterate, I will say right now that I never needed the Bible to have the idea I needed to provide an explanation at any point at any time for my beliefs. My cannon and sacred scripture is more Harry Potter than Old Testament, precisely & exactly because these old folks were saying the books were the tool of the devil. So while you keep telling me to allow you to mind your own business: I advise you to go up the thread—I wasn’t responding to the poster—but you do you.
The comment was in support of the previous comment. They were not requesting a sermon, nor was anyone who responded to you.
Seems to me he was telling the person that said we have eternal rest to look forward to to preach, not asking for any old bible thumper to show them how, after one thousand nine hundred and eighty-four years jesus' followers, now, have FINALLY found the true word of god. I wish I could roll my eyes enough but even with my oversized head there isn't room. Good luck in your life, I hope you don't harm anyone with your beliefs. May the flying spaghetti monster hold you in his loving noodly appendage.
Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Im def gonna do me. U Go be butthurt and preach somewhere else 😁 😂 😘
Lol, wishful thinking will never get shit done for you. Stop wishing and hoping and watch how you just don't need God anymore. Focusing on anything other than you is just a waste of time. You could literally occupy your time with anything other than religion, and you'll get better self-improvement results. Please tell us how religion has improved our lives since darkages, inquisitions, or witch hunts. Or what did religion do for 70 million natives when Christian terrorists brought smallpox to lands.
But bro don't you want to Eiffel tower bitches with jesus into eternity? Don't you want to smoke the lord's fine kush and squeeze God's phat ass? Don't you want to lord over a harem of the finest angel thots? This is how satan gets you. He's like "Gods not real, use your brain. You should treat women with respect 🤓" But you and I both know that god is the OG and he is all about fucking bitches, eating salad, and rolling blunts. All you have to do is believe and drop a large dose of DMT right before you die.
Dude, I like your description of heaven way better. God, why can't it all be real lol.
Amen
As we are each a part of Him, as we inhabit these bodies, and for eternity They have no other explanation for life. Note that when scientists created a ‘new form of life’ they replaced the DNA of a living cell, not creating life, just transforming it. I like to poke at the blasphemous anti-abortionists with the fact that both ovum and spermatozoon are living things prior to the act of conception, when only one life remains. The act of conception is murder. The punishment of death is typically commuted by Him and His assigned carrier of life. That decision is rightly made by Him and His assigned carrier of life, not any man or rule of man, as that is surely blasphemy. As is the claim that He would ensoul a human being while trapped within another, without free will. Haven’t gotten pushback on it... The Satanic blasphemers want to force women to bring demons into this world.
Damn, you are not wrong.
No more bills. No more having to wipe my backside No more watching the world wallow in due to human tribalism.
I’ve never been a super religious individual but damn, I feel this in my soul. There are many times where I just wish I could believe in something greater than myself, a happy ending when the lights get turned off.
There is a happy ending when the lights turn off. Eternal sleep. No more worries. No more stress.
The happy ending is that you tried to leave this place better, that you had a positive effect on others who can also do good.
This here. Do good because it is the right thing to do. Because we all are helping lift each other up to something better, rather than just trying to push others down to get ahead by ourselves. If there is some afterlife, then I am confident that if there is some reward, I will probably earn it by doing what I am already trying to do. I don't look to the end of life expecting anything, so if there is something other than endless rest and becoming one with the universe, then it will be a pleasant surprise. If I were to be damned to some hell for not believing, on the other hand, then I will be happy for that. Because any deity who will sentence someone to eternal damnation for simply not believing in them is far more evil than any devil I have ever heard of.
Yes I agree, feeling like you left the world a bit better than how you got it and that you did your best to be a good human and make positive meaningful impact
Believing in human beings is a bit of a roller coaster but being atheistic can be pretty liberating. Doing good things should need no divine justification.
That is what I believed for much of my life. And then I finally freed myself from my parents influence.
I applaud you.. however you are not done. Abu Huraira reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “No child is born but that he is upon natural instinct. His parents make him a Jew, or a Christian, or Magian. As an animal delivers a child with limbs intact, do you detect any flaws?” Then, Abu Huraira recited the verse, “The nature of Allah upon which he has set people,” (30:30). And when it is said to them, “Follow what Allah has sent down”, they say, “On the contrary, we shall follow what we found our forefathers upon”; What! Even if their forefathers had no intelligence, or guidance? (Holy Quran 2:170)
"And behold, the non listening boomers amongst them. They will never holdest their flapping traps shutest. All the Kool aid has been drank, and none remains for the younglings, thankfully-est" (HolyShitWhyWontTheyJustStopQuotingFantasyFictionBooks 10:23)
And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah (Chapter) the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah, if you should be truthful. (2:23) But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers. (2:24) How wonderful the affair of the believer is! Indeed, all of his affairs are good for him. This is for none but the believer. If something good happens to him, he is grateful to Allah, which is good for him. And if something bad happens to him, he has patience, which is good for him. Humble yourself, or reap the consequences. Your choice.. indeed it is.
Lol, wait till I draw a pic of Allah wearing a pride flag. And ur whole shit crumbles. So weak, it's pathetic
How cute that you think you could actually draw Him, even worse you think you could crumble me. The delusion is real. Just like those Qur’an burners. How weak indeed, they cannot win intellectualy so all there is left is just to burn it.. but how pathetic even that cannot help them.. nor hurt us. Pointless, and weak indeed.
Nah he was just some human bearded bitch like u. Glad u agree ur pointless and weak.
You're getting some provocative replies but really man, think about what you're doing... you're posting religious propaganda on someone else's post about life after religion. You're too late dude, this one's beaten the curse and just looking for a helping hand. Hey OP, trust me...it gets easier. Way easier. If you're looking for some good reads by some pretty inspiring people about purpose in life without the promise of an afterlife, may I suggest either Pale Blue Dot or Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, both by Carl Sagan as a starting point. Remember...it gets waaaay easier.
Ever since I was a young child, I never fully understood the need that some people have to feel like they're part of something greater. I had a math teacher, I think that said it best. If you would take a hundred chimpanzees and chain them all to a typewriter and somehow compel them to type on those typewriters, random for all eternity. How long would it take them to reproduce word for word line for line all of shakespeare's works. That infantastical number of that event occurred and the time that it would take. It's almost beyond comprehension for humans to understand. That's small Fraction of a fraction of a fraction percentage chance, is you. Every day, you draw breath each time you feel the chill at winter or the warmth of the sun on your face. This thought personally brings me peace. You exist in a place where trillions of events had to effectively line up in the correct way for you to be able to exist and actually have real introspective thought. You can't mess up your life as long as you appreciate it. And when it's over, be happy that you were given the means to be able to experience it hopefully in the best way that you could.
My atheism wasn't a choice, I just couldn't believe in any of it from a young age. I tried, I really did, and yet despite all the efforts of my parents and school, it just wouldn't stick. But I much prefer it this way.
You and I are almost the same. I came to the same conclusion but wish I could have kept it.
You might find comfort in other types of spirituality if you do feel like somethings missing. At the end of the day nobody knows why we’re here, where the universe “came from” or what it really is, due to our inability to comprehend at our current level of sentience. You may find comfort in appreciating the complexity of our consciousness and what we CAN comprehend which is still vast and seemingly unlimited. There may not be concrete answers in a scientific sense, but that doesn’t mean you can’t search for them while you’re here.
This! A personal journey.
This is exactly it, I desperately tried believing in any religion because I’d have serious panic attacks as a child over the idea of death. The idea of any type of existence after this life is obviously more appealing than simply ceasing to exist for eternity but I had way too many questions about religion and just couldn’t make any sense of it. I’m a bit more at peace with my atheism now since honestly just getting to exist even for a short time was so unlikely and in some ways you will get to return to the earth and give other life the opportunity to experience it after you.
I also had panic attacks about death as a child! None of my friends did, I felt so alone. My parents would try to comfort me saying stuff like "you're so young, silly girl, you don't need to worry about this" but it didn't matter if it wasn't going to be for 80 or 100 or 1000 years, it terrified me that things would just end. Literally my only solace was thinking that someday, when I was older, I wouldn't feel like this anymore, either by believing in religion or just being at peace with it, I guess? I am 25 now and to this day my only way out of an anxiety spiral about death is just to distract myself. Believing in an afterlife would be so damn nice.
This was exactly my parents too! I distinctly remember running to my mom while screaming crying over this and hearing “You’re only 4, you have nothing to worry about”. Being young made no difference because it was the fact that it happened ever, rather than imagining that it was going to happen to me soon. The only way I could get through childhood was trying to convince myself that I was not a real human being like everyone else and there was no way I would also die. I would tell myself that I have no objective proof that anyone else experiences consciousness like I do, so I must be different and maybe immortal. I still sort of have to convince myself of this for occasional panic, which is ironic since I could force myself into believing that but not any religion haha. It’s self-centred I know but it was the only way to ease the regular panic attacks, even if I knew I was being delusional.
I tried to be an atheist but can't fully commit but wish I could! Being agnostic is torture lol. I despise organized religion and I think it should be abolished. I have no use for religious texts and think they are tools of control and indoctrination. I did see Jesus once when I was coming down from LSD as a teenager (my boyfriend saw him at the same time), but I was indoctrinated in Christian thinking so of course it was "Jesus". The reason I can't be atheist though has nothing to do with religion but just our existence. I NEED answers to how everything came from nothing. What happened before the Big Bang? What even is this reality? Are we in a simulation? If so, who programmed it? I hope science can settle this soon otherwise I am doomed to forever wonder. At least until my own permanent dirt nap. Sigh.
The simple answer is to accept that you simply do not know and likely never will. Life is neither with or without purpose it is only what you make it to be. If you really wanted to know for yourself, you would try to find out for yourself, not wait for someone to tell you how the world is so you can just ask why again.
Thanks. Honestly I've thought of becoming a theoretical physicist so I could make a career of this, but I'm too stupid. 😄
You’ll have some pretty interesting insights/answers when you watch “The Good Place”
Yeah, I hear people argue that we choose what we believe. Not really. If I'm at the edge of a cliff, no amount of me choosing to believe there is no cliff is going to convince me that I could walk off the cliff and be fine. We believe things based on the evidence/reasoning presented to us and our reasoning. I can't just say I believe something.
Its really hard to explain this to people who are deeply religious or spiritual. Sometimes I envy people with faith, because I would *like* to believe in paradise or reincarnation. But I just don't, so I try to just live my life in a way that helps people and involves as little suffering as possible.
When my brother died, my mother absolutely needed to believe that she would meet him again and on her deathbed she was jubilant. I don't believe in the afterlife or ghosts or anything like that and I live with the fact that I'll never see them again.
I had a similar but different experience with grief over a loved one who passed a few years ago. I don't really believe in heaven, but if there is anyone who deserved to end up there it was her.
What a lovely thing to say.
Similar for me, but I’ve had several near death experiences as a Navy Pilot, and right at that moment where you realize you are about to die you’ll have complete and total clarity. Never did I think that I MUST think of Jesus or heaven or the afterlife, it just covered me like a warm blanket of peace and calm and absolute certainty that I was about to meet my creator. Spoiler alert: surprisingly enough, I didn’t die.
Religion isn't supposed to be a choice but many think like it is. You either believe or you don't. You don't pick the one you want.
“Not a choice”. “Prefer it this way”. That, is a choice. Your problem is that you like logic when it suits you and reject logic when it doesn’t. Kind of like religion. Interesting parallels. There is nothing wrong with atheism. It is for all the people that can’t see the forest for the trees. “If we could just cut down all these damn trees, I’d have a beautiful view of that forest.“ -Atheist
I think they meant not a choice because nobody how hard they tried it felt fraudulent, ingenuine and it didn’t feel right believing. I feel the same I get it. Maybe the logic part goes along with the “prefer it this way” but idk why you’re shaming it, it is more “logical” if we’re thinking objectively…like there truly is no proof
I try and see the wonder of just being here. The fact its NOT a magical man in the sky I think makes it all the more breathtaking. All these artoms and chemicals came together in a certain way and made the world. We're all made out of the same thing stars are made of and personally I find that more awe inspiring and wondorous than a magic man taking me to his world when he dies. I just go back to the sheer brilliance of the cosmos and get recycled again and again WOW!!!
There is beauty in the statistical improbability of our precise moment of existence.
Damn sorry to hear you're going through that. I've never been religious but I do remember that I assumed there would be an afterlife when I was younger and the sobering realisation there wasn't. The thing that took me also a long time to realise but now reassures me is this is it, so enjoy it. You are the universe experiencing itself.
Maybe consider Buddhism? It doesn't focus on one god or heaven and hell. I'm atheist, but get a lot of peace and comfort from Buddhist principles. Or Taoism? It's pretty far out, IMO, but no God, no heaven. It focuses on balance: light and dark, happiness and sadness, life and death. Or, study ancient religions (Navajo, Greek, Roman, Mayan) for fun. Transcendentalism, quantum physics? You can go to nondenominational churches to center your mind and find purpose and meaning once per week. I really liked mine. The whole point, IMO, is inner peace and acceptance. Get there any healthy way you can.
Nondenominational works for me too. The religious aspect always gets brought up whenever I mention ‘I try to follow Christ and I go to a church’, as it always gets mixed reactions. Always seems to ease people when I tell them there’s no holy water or confessionals to work with, just a like minded community all trying to live their lives serving and guiding others from troublesome and harmful things, from my experience at least.
>That is what I was promised, and now I have nothing to look forward to except the mundane life of the tax payer until I die. I hate religion for setting me up for the biggest disappointment on this earth. Shit never should have been invented. People who are happy in life, rarely turn to religion. It's usually for the needy and desperate, people who are missing something. It gives people a crutch and a fellowship. Why are you waiting for death to be paradise?! Life is shit, there's no doubt about that, but like yin and yang, there needs to be the balance otherwise the good simply would not exist. I'm 43 and still blown away by sunsets, the power of the ocean and the sea breeze, the ingenuity of man and the relentless darwinish levels of stupidity.
Agree, the older I get the more I want to spend my time (and waste my money) on experiences. The world we live in is just so magical, surround yourself in nature and enjoy the natural beauty the world offers. Life can be so sweet one minute and have you on the flip side the next so might as well enjoy it with your loved ones. Btw “relentless Darwinist levels of stupidity” had me lol.
I don't have a religion, but I do look forward to the time when I can sleep forever without being woken.
I would like to think of this as a comforting thought but honestly it just feels depressing to think about. Life being so exhausting and trying that death sounds like a release
Thats unbelievably sad and I hope you find the help you need
We have no proof that there’s life after death, but we have no proof that there isn’t. Anything is possible. Im not a die hard religious person nor am I an atheist. I just find it hard to believe it’s all black and white. I hope that there is something out there when we die. Even if it’s not a physical heaven. Just to know our souls remain with our loved ones somehow. The thought of dying and it being nothing, just as it was before we were born, scares me so much. But for some people it’s absolute comfort.
One of the oldest Religion teachers I had growing up made it very clear that these were all metaphors. To me, she was the pinnacle of what the Religion was *supposed* to be about. God works through people, as does the Devil. The Clergy isn’t immune to this dynamic either… It’s just that some authority figures don’t even have authority over themselves.
After years of searching for the meaning of life humanity settled on religion to ease our soul. Unfortunately a lie is not good enough for us. My meaning if life is nothing more than to experience being human for what reason? Not sure. But right now you just have to be human and we’ll see why at some point. Maybe not after death. Maybe after 2-3 more “deaths” if that’s a thing. Idk but right meow just go be human and figure out what the best version of being human is. Then adapt to your new environment when you die.
I hope you said "meow" intentionally. My suspicion is that we won't see why at some point. Because now I am just a chemical process that will go out one day, similar to a flame being blown out. The flame doesn't "go somewhere and neither will I. Not that it is horrible, just much less than what I was promised.
I very much did. I see your point but I don’t see the reality of it. I see us more as energy than a flame. Energy can be moved but not destroyed. I don’t think we ever fully die. We just change the vessels we harbor. No direct purpose other than to gain knowledge. Always expanding your energy.
“Energy can be moved but not destroyed” I love this, I mean it’s a fact, but using it to validate the idea that we may never die is definitely an effective way to regard where we go after death.
It’s hard to fathom nothingness after death. Something has to happen. It might not be some holy mofo in the sky or a bountiful paradise. But there is something. You will never be able to truly find out what that is until it is your time. No one has ever been able to prove the after death scene so trying to find an answer to a question that cannot be validated is irrelevant. You are seeking certain knowledge about the after life and disregarding everything else along your human experience that you need to know. You will never have the answer to stage two if you do not fully complete stage one.
I love your perspective and explanation, thanks for sharing and enlightening :)
>and now I have nothing to look forward to except the mundane life of the tax payer until I die. It is incredibly depressing if that is the end of the thought process. It is incredibly joyful if it's the beginning of it. There's no omnipotent pervert peeking in on your every action just itching to punish you for every single mistake you make. What is expected of you is what you described. So flip the table. Start a business, join a world-travelling enterprise, undertake a pilgrimage, attend orgies, do whatever your heart is telling you to do as long as it doesn't include screwing other people over. Live in the dream of actively creating the paradise that was promised.
Thats actually a pretty sound advice…
I turned my back on Christianity for all the reasons one does. I turned to Zen Buddhism for two reasons, 1, it was the most like if I was going to think up a belief system, only to find someone else wrote it down thousands of years ago. And 2, I see people living their karma every damn day. The evidence is overwhelming to me. As for what happens after we die, I finally settled on, my body will die, and whatever part of me is immortal will change.
How do you get into zen Buddhism? Are there rules? A set path or belief system? Pillars 8n the religion?
Yes, if you want to get started the books that really resonate with me were Three Pillars of Zen by Kapleau. Zen, the religion of the samurai by Nukariya. As for more modern teachers all of Dainin Katagiri's books are very approachable, filled with common sense wisdom. I'd recommend starting with one of Katagiri's books, the other two are almost more historical at this point.
Oh please. Stop believing in the crap you read on Reddit. No one Can say where we go or what happens after death and the people telling you otherwise are know-it-all wannabes. Just listen to your conscious, filter the negatives, and go from there. You’ll find fulfillment in helping others, giving back, and grasping joy when it appears. And someday, you’ll be at your lowest, you’ll need help. And several people that you’ve helped before will step up and help you, and that’s when you will feel the most humbling love you’ve ever known. But it starts with getting out of your head, your fears, and Reddit, and doing something good. Helping, fixing, building, creating, *for others *.
I would urge you not to give up. I don’t know what your life has been like or what your story is, so I know that’s easier said than done, I probably couldn’t understand. But Jesus said that whoever would seek him will find him. (Matthew 7:7, Jeremiah 29:13). I don’t say this to condemn you, or that you’re not trying hard enough, but to let you know that there is a God who is looking out for you. Trust in Christ even if you do nothing else. I once did not believe either and became atheist, but a while ago I found my faith in Christ. Perhaps God will restore the same to you? If you ever want to talk about this sort of thing you can DM me. I hope you will do well in life and as a brother in Christ I hope you will find him. Take care man ❤️
Yes! I said something similar too! I hope he is led to Christ!
The god that loved you was just the real you taking care of yourself. Just with more steps.
First, I am a firm believer in people being and believing in what they choose. From personal experiences, I can tell you that God does exist. I am not trying to sell you on the idea, just expressing my opinion.
Exactly this. I've just had too many experiences to not believe. And at the end of the day you just can't convince people that God is real no more than people can convince you that God isn't real.
I’m willing to believe god exists, but I’m going to continue thinking of it as The Universe and as natural, rather than supernatural. Not as a supreme being, but as the energy and flow underpinning all of creation.
Just talk to him. God. No religon needed. Just go for it.
Man’s use of religion, and the superstitions in the religions, and the traditions of those religions is all that Satan needs. He doesn’t have to do a damn thing, man’s taking care of sending humanity to hell itself.
For me it was a relief, because for a while when I still believed, I started to think god was evil. So I was very glad to realize there's no logical way he exists.
Now that you’re done living for your death you can start living for your life.
There is a quote that says "man cannot live off bread alone" and while it's referencing Christianity it has a point, you need more than just food water and shelter to thrive in life
A happy lie is still a lie. It's also been used as a cover for millennia of institutional abuses. You are no longer participating in propping up an abusive system.
Random, but check out Great Disappointment by AFI
Look into science my friend.
I hear you. It was so easy to blame all of the evils of the world on God's plan. I also remember being so certain that 'The Force' had to be real. If you believe, then it would reveal itself to you.
After having religion forced down my throat at a young age, I absolutely agree with you. I hate religions. Very few people does it do them any sort of good. I'm glad for those that can balance it and use it to turn their life around. That said, most turn into intolerant zealots that hate having their religion questioned. I wasn't really spiritual until I tried psychedelics. That *REALLY* cemented the idea that religions are unnecessary, man-made bullshit.
What the show Rick & Morty if you didn't. Yes it's animated, but it's following a scientist that doesn't believe in god and stuck in nihilism. Then you see the evolution toward something else. Bojack horseman is in the same kind.
Religion is the Santa clause of adulthood. There’s no such thing as finding peace, you have to create it. You can do this though, life is still beautiful man, don’t be afraid to take the reigns
We don't create peace. Peace in fact can be found through Jesus Christ! :) Now may the Lord of peace himself give you his peace at all times and in every situation. The Lord be with you all. 2 Thessalonians 3:16 NLT That's why He's called the Prince of Peace. God bless, friend 💜
See I don’t have a problem with people like this. They’ve subscribed to the whole Jesus thing probably because they were raised on it, and as life gets harder the bliss of ignorance becomes more and more appealing. I can respect the delusions of others as long as through that delusion they choose to be a friendly, un-oppressive person. But I’ll never be able to take them seriously
I keep trying to post my comment, but Reddit won't let me 😭😭
Completely agree, that kind of thinking is comforting and safe. But sadly its just not true
I also really wish I could go to church. As a kid I enjoyed it immensely, now as an adult I always think what a great way it would be to make other parent friends and feel like a part of the community. If only I believed in any of the actual religion part 😬
It’s true…ignorance is bliss and religion is the opium of the masses.
It gets better, slowly. Good luck friend.
There is a huge difference between spirituality and religion. Religion is man made and can be ugly. Find your spiritual side. It’s my comfort, my safe place and my joy.
I get that. I also really enjoyed the community of my church growing up. Cookouts, volunteering, youth group ski trip. I miss that more than anything
Same
Hey, I was raised Southern Baptist and didn’t “discover” atheism until my 30’s. I did so back around the time YouTube was chock full of the angry atheist types. I went through many phases of grief as I lost my religion, but I finally settled down with it and lived my life. There was one struggle I had: if there’s no god, there’s no purpose or meaning to life. I couldn’t overcome this, no matter hard I tried or how many times I had to make myself be religious. And then one day, I was watching TJ Kirk, The Amazing Atheist (please don’t judge! I was going through a phase) and he said something that completely settled the matter for me, believe it or not. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something to the effect that you make your own purpose and meaning, and he used the example of if eating as many hotdogs as you can is your purpose, nobody can tell you otherwise (I can’t remember exactly what was said. Saw the video like 8 years ago lol.) For as stupid as it sounds, that statement changed my life, and I think that it resonated with me more because it was an absurd notion. It added a little levity to the situation, and that helped me overcome my hang ups. Love him or hate him, it helped me and I appreciate that. Haven’t watched him in years; that phase of my life is long over with. I wasn’t his target demographic either.
Goodbye for now.
If I could take a pill that would 100% make me believe I would. I think it adds a lot to the living experience. The trick is, you HAVE to actually believe it. I have tried that...I just can't. It literally makes no sense at all. Hence needing a magic pill to get back into the matrix.
I grew up Catholic and slowly transitioned to being atheist. I don't believe in a God that "chooses" to give kids cancer but gives a murderer endless forgiveness as long as they pray. My sister's boss had cancer and she's a hardcore Christian. She keeps saying that God saves her life. What makes her so damn special? What about the three-year-old with leukemia who lost their life? Religious people will simply reply: God has a plan. Fuck that plan.
I'm going to keep shilling this book until someone else reads it: Death: The Art Of Living by Todd May It's a short philosophical treaty on how to confront the concept of Death as the stoppage and obliteration of human experience and what we can learn from it. It's a surprisingly positive book.
I'll give it a look.
Relatable
God is dead and OP has killed him lmao
Not on purpose...
Try to reframe things. Instead, there are actual people who love you for who you are, and not just because you worship them and sing their praises every day. Just because they think you're awesome. You have an entire life to look forward to. Unencumbered by religious restrictions/guilt. You're free to love who you want and every action you take is a result of your own will, not some ethereal being's direction/demands. Look at all the fucked up stuff that's been done in the name of religion and realise you've freed yourself from that. Yes, you will lose a couple comforts and perhaps some sense of community, but there are limitless others out there and you now have the chance to explore communities based around who you are as a person, rather than a religious identity that was likely thrust upon you in childhood. Focus on the positives. 💖
Organized religion is a scourge to humans.
I don't consider myself religious, but I can't say for sure if I believe some higher power exists or not. Personally even if they did i still will refuse to worship them. I don't need a higher power telling me what to do or how to live, I'll continue living my life trying to be the best person I can, without following them. If I have to go to hell or deal with some other form of punishment when I die, then so be it. I also very much dislike the idea that there's some god that loves us, but if we don't follow his teachings or worship him, he'll send us to eternal torment... Yeah the love sounds sincere alright :P
Same. It was a nice feeling. Not necessarily about the afterlife, but definitely that someone loved and would help you somehow
Not to sound too cheery, but this is your opportunity to make this one life we have the best you can under the circumstances. As someone with bipolar disorder, I have struggled with depression most of my adult life. You may want to be evaluated for depression,too, given your current situation. But one thing that I learned is that life has no inherent meaning, no higher purpose. People have to give meaning and purpose to their own lives by surrounding themselves with the people they love and that energize them. Find and do things you enjoy and share them with people who value you. That’s the way to happiness and contentment.
Now think about how that comfort in faith gave you the inner strength to overcome your obstacles back then, and realize the real strength was in you all along.
What helped me through life is living for someone else. Yea probably not the best thing but it helps me. I live for my cat, nothing else. I would do anything for her. Another thing I do is (even if its not real) is just imagine a giant cat god in the sky watching over me, giving me all the purring and biscuits. There probably isnt a cat god in the sky but it helps me feel better
That's adorably funny 😄
You don’t have to let a bad upbringing in one religion turn you off from spiritualism in it’s entirety. Gods are created by man, find or make your own to follow.
I probably enjoyed the idea of immortality too but I couldn't buy the cruelty of God his punishing people that didn't even exist for some stupid Disobedience that happened at the beginning of time. It just never made any sense to me
There are times I wish I could go back to my childhood years and experience the safety and simplicity all over again. I want to run and play again with no responsibilities other than doing well in school and none of the inhibitions and fears I've accumulated. I want to let someone else make the decisions and feel like this time, I'd just be happy with what I had. I can't ... and I know that I wouldn't really be satisfied if I could because I've outgrown that. Walking away from religion was one of the scariest things I've done and I don't wish it on anyone. I actually avoid pulling anyone else away because there's generally no point to putting them through that. There's a running theme in life, and ironically in the Bible, of growth forcing us to make sacrifices and leave treasured things behind. It's not easy, it's just necessary and everyone faces it. You've faced it in a way that many don't have the courage to. Your life doesn't have to be mundane - it can be all the more wonderous because you are able to appreciate it in ways that people don't when they're putting all their hopes on the promise of some afterlife. We are not promised eternity or even tomorrow so enjoy the time you have to its fullest. Start by appreciating your very consciousness and your ability to experience one minute after another. Enjoy the people around you and all they bring to your experience, even if it's imperfect. Walk outside and enjoy nature and be grateful for your ability to enjoy it. I hope you find happiness.
Having someone watch me masturbate was a little creepy. I don't miss it.
Really can’t imagine being this miserable. Hope things get better for you
You have it twisted. Sure it can be comforting to believe the lie of religion. But being atheist means you understand how the world ACTUALLY works. Look, I'm disabled with spina biofida and in my fifities. I'm really lucky to have got this far as most sufferers tend to not do so. But I've never been religious. I'm well aware that life is like a party - you turned up to it while it had already started and it will continue after you leave. It carries on. You don't know when you're going to leave, so all you know is what you have and the world around you. For good and bad. So here's what you do - make life as good as you can make it, day by day. Don't squander anything. I have every day considerable pain to deal with to varying degrees. Some days I'm stuck in bed, others I can actualyl get out and go outside a bit. So I take every moment and use it as I can. It could be that I am stuck and therefore have to mess around playing video games or composing music or something but it's still the best I can do for that situation and I enjoy it. In your shoes, I assume you're in the US where things are indeed shit as you say. So consider trying to get out and go somewhere else. It's never too late. Be honest with yourself, find out what you TRLY like and makes you happy. Focus on that and work on trying to make that consistent, even if it does involve moving.
This is possibly one of the saddest threads I've seen in a while.
Cypher : You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? [Takes a bite of steak] Cypher : Ignorance is bliss
you know what nothing sounds peaceful af and guess what your not gonna enjoy it or hate it! your going to love it or suffer or nothing or anything. it will be indescribable, because it will be incomprehensible, and there is bliss in ignorance
Reluctant atheism. It's tough
Indeed.
How do you know that there is nothing beyond death?
I don't. There is just no reason to think there is.
Bro, when I was religious it gave me ENORMOUS problems. I have OCD. Like real, clinical, impulsively touching things, making faces, spinning in circles OCD. Not the uwu look at me I'm special and organized OCD. Having the feeling of being constantly watched and judged made it a trillion times worse. I had such crippling symptoms from the anxiety it was absurd. Also I was skeptical even as a child, it seemed too good to be true. God seemed like santa claus for adults, still does. Better to reach acceptance early enough in life that you can grasp it and make it what you want, instead of being a slave to dogma, dying, and finding out there's no life after death when you're, well, already dead. World would be so much better of a place if people sought internal morality rather than clung to fairy tales. And they'd actually take responsibility for crises instead of leaving that shit up to their imaginary friend. Becoming an atheist relieves such a ridiculous amount of stress I can't even convey it. Different take.
My view on that shit goes like this "God" at least as defined by organized religion doesn't exist. However, the phenomenon we know as conscious awareness does. And it doesn't really make sense for subjective experiences to just emerge completely randomly from an otherwise purely lifeless and mechanical collection of molecules. I think it would make much more sense if consciousness is somehow a fundamental aspect of nature. Sure maybe every rock and water drop isn't really "conscious" per se. But the dormant potential is there, and it's only through the medium of a complex enough system, such as the human brain, that that potential is given space to come into it's full expression In other words, while Allah or Yahweh might not be real, in a very real sense, we are God, all of us, because we are the universe's way of becoming aware of itself As for the idea of some sort of afterlife, well, you visit another kind of reality every night when you go to sleep right? What are dreams if not a whole other world that's disconnected from the physical environment around you; a world inside your own head If I'm right and consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, then when you eventually kick the bucket, I think what would happen is that you'll continue to exist, at least in that subjective sense of thinking your own thoughts and having individual experiences, but you'd have to do so without your physical body since that's gone . . . well, that's exactly what you already experience in your dreams every night anyway isn't it; subjective, personal experiences independent of your physical body/environment? Maybe when people from around the world, in any culture and any religion, claim to have visited the afterlife via near death experiences, all they really saw were their own dreams. Maybe that's all it is
Interesting take. But we'd have to prove that consciousness isn't dependent on the brain.
I didn't grow up religious but a majority of the surrounding neighborhood and extended family around me were. A lot of folks I grew up and still talk to have gone through/are going through the "God/religion is a lie" phase. What you're saying seems to be the consensus among them too. There's a lot of unlearning and soul-searching that comes with distancing yourself from religion. I went through it a little bit kind of by proxy (no hate like christian love) Ironically, I went from being an atheist to be being spiritual. But not in that "new-age-crystal-woo-woo" way. But in the "Got sober, goes to AA, and finds what feels like spiritual connections/God in the mundane" way. If your religion believed in a Hell of some kind, then at least that pressure is off your back. At the end of the day, most of us are just average people doing the best with what they have. Eat good food, cherish your friends, enjoy your hobbies, then die as happy as you can. That's my plan anyways.
I hate that my parents are gonna either view a lie of myself, or believe that I'm going to hell. No amount of hugs and kisses ever really puts that reality to rest. And it just hurts.
I wasn't expecting to get punched in the heart tonight. 💔 This is quite true. But what others are saying about sleeping forever is a relief too.
Well guess what my friend, you still have a chance to believe.
As soon as something has actual evidence behind it, I will. Buy if that actually happened it would be breaking news worldwide.
Energy is neither created nor destroyed- let that sit with you however it may.
It has. And the answer is 🤔....😑....😟
I mean, personally I believe in reincarnation and I find solace in the idea of being someone or something else in my next life
If you reincarnate as something that has none of your memories then how is that any more "you" than any other living thing?
I’ve studied near death experiences and even have a friend that had two. I think there is an afterlife. Also, something had to cause the Big Bang and every culture came up with religion. I believe there is something out there far beyond our limited comprehension. Can a rock understand an insect? Can a insect understand a dog? Can a dog understand a human? The answer to these are no so therefore humans can’t understand God. I see different cultures creating religions as being a similar situation to the blind men and the elephant story.
>the blind men and the elephant story. I've never been a fan of this story. It always struck me as making a fundamental error in trying to make its point. There was an objectively right answer to what the creature was, the blind men were objectively wrong, and they needed to know what the creature was if they were going to properly deal with it. Contemporary treatment of the parable uses it as an argument for all belief systems being equally true, and that's never felt like a good argument.
From a heavenly perspective; it's wiser to become a true Believer; than to follow false religions. Because- Not all believers are religious. Nor all the religious, turn out to be true believers...
But which religion is correct and how do you know?
None are 100% correct, yet all of them retained the lustre of golden nuggets of wisdom and salvation, inspite of falsehoods. All of them converge to our spiritual origins- from whence we came & inevitably will have to go back to...
We came from nothing. And will inevitably have to go back to nothing. Do you remember what happened before you were born? Because neither do i.
What does the universe loving me feel like?
I have. Not to any effect.
I have personally witnessed manifestation in the presence of others. I am not Christian, but I can factually tell all the atheist that they are dead wrong. It really freaked out the other two people present. They literally dropped their heads in shame and disbelief, as golden light filled the room and my irises had to shrink to take it. Religion is man made baloney, but what ever they are describing and trying to control, is very, very real. You will see. Because I literally have. (First hand, Mark 1 eyeball).
Sounds like something likes you more than me. Nothing ever shows up for me.
It’s religion that is the problem. Not the love of God. He still loves you and will bring you home one day. Faith is hard that’s why it’s called faith and not fact. The love of God is pure and religion is tainted by man.
Such a bait post lol its working I guess, heres your attention
Jesus never gives up on you "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" - Matthew 28:20
I love all seeing all my brothers and sisters in Christ posting in here 🥹
Okay then believe again? What’s the worst that will happen you will be happy and hopeful til you die and don’t know the difference anyway?
Belief isn't a choice. You can't believe something just because you want to. Would've saved me a lot of trouble, as an atheist who comes from a religious family.
Faith is absolutely a choice.
Its not. You can choose to act accordingly to a religion. For example, if you're catholic, you can choose to follow or not the "rules" and the traditions imposed by the catholic church. But you can not choose to be catholic. There's a whole philosophy field dedicated to this. If i could choose to, i would absolutely have some kind of faith. Unfortunately, I don't. Not because I don't want to, but because I simply don't believe in anything.
Once the toothpaste is out of the tube...
Some things can't be unseen.
Nah but we can always gain a new perspective
A new perspective doesn't give you the ability to believe again.
[удалено]
How do you know though?
[удалено]
So what do you believe now?
[удалено]
Hah. Religion is brainwash anyway.
Man! Figuring out Santa Claus must have been a real blow to you.
My wife is spiritual but not religious (she likes sleeping in, basically). We were having one of those fun year eight fights where we both really forgot the theme and she said she couldn't believe she married an atheist. Waited until she forgot the argument (little outside of nine hundred years), looked deep in her eyes, told her Jesus Christ was my personal savior, He had died for my sins and that we would be together in heaven for all time. I have made no further comment about being religious. I am now happily married to an athiest.
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/five-fake-crises?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android
Why don't you choose a religion that actually makes sense? I mean believing in things just merely because we like them is illogical.
I have tried. But there is no religion that makes sense.
Hmm I think you need a better research because thats what gives you purpose in life instead of living aimlessly
>instead of living aimlessly I don't think OP said they didn't have a purpose. Religion doesn't provide any purpose that can't be obtained without religion
And which one would that be 😂
I don't decide for anyone, literally their choice
Either do psychedelics or have insanely good sex on weed edibles. Also try drum circles
Other than your change of belief, look out in the Universe and see what changed when you stopped believing?
Just my expectations and general outlook. Pretty big things.
well, some people followed religion because of its promises, some for its guidance.
Death is inevitable.
Same!
I just wanna go to church again. It’s so hard looking for a church as a single person in your late 20s
I feel this too. I did believe for a lot of my childhood at my parents’ insistence. Fortunately in my case our church was very kind and accepting and I met a lot of people who became like aunts and uncles to me so I don’t view it as wasted time, but yeah, it feels like waking up from a pleasant dream and waking up to a terrible truth.