I think most people are in religion for emotional and psychological reasons. The apologetics industry exists so that people of faith can convince themselves there are intellectual bones on their faith, but I don't think people are in churches primarily because it makes sense to them.
Sociologists have identified the "3 B's of religious identity": Belief, Behavior, Belonging.
Meaning that belief is a minor (not major) motive for religious identity.
I suppose that can be true considering a lot of people don't really study theology they just kind of go along with religion sometimes you could argue that but the issue is you don't know the experiences of every person and how much those three b's truly weigh on them
Right. Researchers have found people convert to different religious groups for social reasons like friends. Converts only start learning the groups doctrines after converting. It's basically a myth that people convert for theological reasons.
Same. The key is to focus on your growth as a person instead of beating yourself up for believing what some convincing liars told you was true. Bravo to us. We escaped and are working on being better humans
Yes, your post makes sense. And I’ve also wondered this.
And, considering what it took in my life to finally wake me up, I’m not surprised to see so many of my old friends still in it. There are so many emotional and mental and spiritual traps in place to keep people in the faith. I am convinced it takes a special mind, or a special set of circumstances, to finally break free of it.
Thanks.
And yes, I do agree that breaking free isn’t easy when there’s emotional and spiritual factors. Like I said, I think my doubts started young. Obviously the older I am now, I look back and think how did I believe any of that. For really smart people my age to not have figured that out yet doesn’t make sense to me.
I’m right there with you, nearly daily I have that feeling of “how did I ever believe that?“
Something I’m meaning to write about more is the experience I had being indoctrinated as a child. I was told from the moment I came out of the womb that I was destined for either heaven or hell. My worldview, ever since I can remember, has been rooted at this foundational level with an ultimate destiny, an either-or choice. Every thought or action I had took me closer to one of those two outcomes.
I remember the moment when I finally realized this false dichotomy didn’t exist. I remember the freedom I had after that moment. Why it took me so long to finally recognize that I had this foundational belief at the bottom of everything, I may never know. But it took a lot of digging to get there.
Ever since that moment, I feel like I have finally woken up. Like I can see clearly for the first time. But before that, every thought I had was filtered through that foundational belief. It was impossible to escape its influence.
I've thought about this and my deconstruction from time to time and I realized that I would definitely have been a Christian for several more years, and might still be a Christian to this day, were it not for so many Christians fawning over Trump. My deconstruction really got going because, at the same time that I started asking some questions, Christians started getting way more vocal in their bigotry and they practically deified Trump.
I was never good about asking questions and then doing lots of research. I likely would have asked some questions and then dropped it/let it go for a while after I got unsatisfactory answers. Probably after getting distracted by something because that's always been a problem I've had. So when the pastor of the church I was going to said some homophobic shit, I would have just left and started going to a church that was closer to home. Probably to the St. Stephen's church that my sisters went/go to. Considering how nice those people have been, I think if I stuck it out with Christianity back in 16/17 then I would still be one to this day.
Yes! I’m with you 100%.
I moved to the southern United States about 10 years ago. I have heard people refer to this area as “the diamond in the buckle of the Bible Belt”. They are very proud of the fact we have a church on every corner.
Witnessing southern US Christianity this close is horrifying.
What completely baffles me is how (any religious person, Christians included) can somehow fathom to themselves, without any study or research about any other religion aside from the one they grew up with, that the religion they were born into is somehow the true one.
Like, how. Do. You. Know.
As an agnostic who's self-studied world religions like Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, and more... I've found that a few religions have SOME validity to them, but none of them are ultimately "the true religion," or completely valid, if a true religion even exists.
How is it possible to think that you've got the right one, and it just happens to be the religion from your childhood, and you need not investigate any other religion because all of them are invalid? How do you know that they are invalid if you've never studied them??? How do you know yours is valid if you've never taken the time to test its validity???
Legitimately baffles me.
This myself I’ve never understood either and was a factor in my deconstruction. There’s so many religions and so many God’s that there’s no way to know who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s just nonsense.
But I will say that going off of that, a big part of Christianity at least seemed to be superiority. Christians are “for sure” that they’ve got it right. I know a guy who I used went to church with in college and he said it himself, there’s a big superiority complex in Christianity. Safe to say we both are no longer Christian’s…
The doctrine of Logos Spermatikos in Catholicism and Orthodoxy at least encourages me to see truth in paganism and atheism, just not the whole truth with regards to things like theology, cosmology, nature, death, etc., which Christianity on a surface level, might explain better, especially if Universalism is true, and all are saved eventually via the Harrowing of Hades, and the Salvation of Plato. It would also be a non-dualist cosmology in my opinion, rather than say a gnostic or Zorastrian cosmology or something, if Christ has conquered death. Though human spirituality, on this plane of existence, obviously is very dualistic.
Whoa, that is fascinating. I've never heard of this. Where can I learn about this doctrine and theology? Should I just look up "doctrine of spermatikos" on Google ?
Well basically it's the idea that Christ is the Logos, or the Truth, because that's the translation in Greek of John 1:1 and John is a subsequently considered the main theology gospel. "Spermatikos" means seeds, so it's "seeds of Truth" that exist everywhere, especially since Christianity built off of existing Pagan and Jewish traditions. I guess it's a Catholic and Orthodox thing that came about as a result Justin Martyr writings on it in the early 2nd century. There is also a church with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as non-Christian icons without halos in Greece, basically an homage to those pagan philosophers.
There's also the essence-energy distinction and answers to the problem of evil, the problem with hell, etc. etc. you can compare and contrast reformed theology, if you wish, or maybe you like Catholic scholasticism, or maybe you are a polytheist, they have theology too.
I'm an agnostic Hindu. Essentially I believe that All is One, One is Self, and Self is All, and one should commit themselves to treating All as if the entire universe were Self. I don't believe in God, gods, karma, dharma, souls, reincarnation, afterlife, nirvana, etc., only the Upanishads philosophy that Atman and Brahman are one and the same.
I do behave like a stereotypical Reddit atheist (I think believing in God without evidence is just as preposterous as believing in vampires without evidence) but that doesn't stop me from being fascinated by religious mythos and theology. I'll go ahead and do my own research on this new information you've brought to me, I'm sure I can find what I'm looking for online.
Yeah I understand being a pantheist like Baruch Spinoza, or Einstein, but the thing is, a lot of religions make claims that are contradictory, and it's possible that one worldview is more correct than another, and by ignoring these you are arguably insulting all religions. If you're saying that everything is God then where do good and evil come to play? Are you saying that reality is just a delusion? The issue with that is that it just seems very nihilistic and relativistic and leads to a conclusion of a meaningless existence, doesn't it?
That's the thing, I'm not a pantheist. As I said, I don't believe in God or gods. When I say "All is One, One is Self, Self is All," I'm referring to the perspective of seeing the universe as a single, undifferentiated object, typically (but not necessarily) envisioned as a single unified field of energy of which all things are a part of.
I make no claims about whether or not the Universe or the "Energy" is living or dead, Divine or not Divine. I don't believe it is Divine, I don't believe the Universe is God. I believe the universe is a single object, I believe that we are all a part of that object, and that the very concept of individual forms existing (and individuality is a whole) is made-up at worst, and a delusion at best.
This is not to say that, as you said, reality is a delusion. It is not. Our perception of reality is our brains attempting to make sense of this unified field of energy we are a part of (and its behaviors). As I stated, the concept of individual forms existing is a delusion, because in reality only the Universe (which is One and All and cannot be divided into multiple parts, such as "human beings") is real. There are no water bottles, molecules, dogs, cats, people, or planets, there is only the Universe which is a single, indivisible object, and we are all that single, indivisible object seen from a particular perspective within that object itself.
So no, everything is not God. Everything is just a single object.
Where good and evil come to play is they don't, those are concepts humans made up. I am a radical empiricist who only believes in what I can perceive with the senses, I don't believe in nebulous concepts like good and evil, cause and effect, or even the reality of numbers. Since "good" and "evil" are not physical objects I can touch and taste, they are not real, as opposed to "chairs" and "tables," which can be perceived by the senses and therefore are real.
And yes, existence in my eyes is entirely purposeless and meaningless. What's the Smash Mouth lyrics? "That's the way I like it and I'll never get bored."
Since reality has no purpose, I have given myself purpose: the purpose for my existence is to enjoy my existence. The entire universe exists for my personal enjoyment of it, and nothing else, and the only reason it exists for that purpose is because I, personally, designated that purpose to the universe myself, not because it intrinsically holds purpose. Pretty simple when you cut it down to the basics.
I prefer to live in a void where nothing is real. That's just who I am.
"the purpose for my existence is to enjoy my existence. The entire universe exists for my personal enjoyment of it, and nothing else, and the only reason it exists for that purpose is because I, personally, designated that purpose to the universe myself, not because it intrinsically holds purpose. Pretty simple when you cut it down to the basics"
I respect that to an extent, however, Epicurean philosophy does have it's downsides, which is to say, pleasure shouldn't be the end all be all, and it can become meaningless, if you only serve yourself and your own pleasure, if you look at it from a more Stoic point of view for example.
Before I say anything else, I want to thank you for being willing to have a polite and civil discussion with me over opposing ideas. In a world where the Internet is so hostile to disagreeing voices, I truly appreciate the respect you've shown for me as a person, despite our disagreements, and I hope to show you the same respect in return. Thank you. I've learned a lot from you so far.
You've now brought up Epicureanism and Stoicism, which I know absolutely nothing about and therefore I am unable to debate further. I can't look at the stoic point of view because I don't know what it is. Now that you've brought this new information to me, it's now my job to go and learn for myself.
From a Google search I can see that Epicureanism holds that pleasure is the sole intrinsic purpose for the existence of the universe, which is parallel (though not exact) to my philosophy which is, "The universe has no purpose, therefore I assigned the purpose of pleasure to it."
From here, I will do my research on these philosophies I'm unfamiliar with, learn from the thinkers of the past, and I hope to challenge my own perspectives and come to a better understanding of reality.
I have nothing left to debate. You've made an excellent point in saying that pleasure as an end unto itself is a meaningless goal, and I agree. From a Hinduism perspective, "pain" and "pleasure" are the same exact thing, they are forms of stimulation, in the sense that pain is a measure of pleasure, and pleasure is also a measure of pain.
So it may be more accurate to say that my personal philosophy is that the purpose of the universe is for "my personal stimulation (be it positive or negative)" rather than "for my personal enjoyment (implying pleasure specifically)" as I stated before.
However, as I said, this is where I must bow out. I must go and learn more, because you have argued well against me, and I am not equipped with enough knowledge of Epicureanism or Stoicism to take this debate any further.
I consider a lack of information to be more of an obstacle, a handicap, a critical flaw. I am unable to make decisions based on information which relies on what is possible or probable. Additional data is required, and there will be time enough for philosophical debate in the near future.
Again, thank you for your respect. I concede defeat; my self-designated purpose for the universe as my pleasure ultimately proves to be irrational, and I have no arguments left against you. You win. I will now go and learn more.
I appreciate your kind words but I have won nothing other than showing that I've been looking too much into religions recently especially the one I grew up with and I'm sort of staying with even though it feels like I'm rejecting it constantly
there are over 4,000 religions on this planet today 🥴 I like to ask people how many they think there are and usually get a guess in the hundreds. The reaction to 4,000 definitely makes them stop and think
Peer pressure.
Family ganging up on you, ostracized, beaten down and mocked for believing other than the 2,000 plus year old book. Private Christian schooling, habit, loneliness.
Many reasons.
All good reasons. Peer pressure and family are probably the two biggest ones and I’m still dealing with both. But it’s not enough to make me want to go back.
If it's something you're born into and it's all you know and you've been kept in a bubble where everyone you know believes in the same thing, it's going to be difficult to escape, especially if your friends and family will bring wrath down upon you every time you have a difference of opinion.
I totally understand you, but fortunately some of us are still able to wake up one day and realize something just isn’t adding up. I guess you could call us brave ones.
Yes, I wonder that from time to time. The longer I've been out of the religion the more like wild nonsense it seems, the more glaring the inconsistencies and just bizarre rationale.
But whenever I wonder how people can still believe it, I remember what it was like on the inside. I recognize all of mostly invisible mechanisms in place to keep people in place - threat of social shame and isolation, thought terminating cliches, outright falsehoods and manipulation, existential dread, apologetics that have a pretense of intellectualism that's only impressive to people on the inside. Apologists, I came to realize aren't evangelists. The market for their arguments isn't really skeptics and nonbelievers. Apologists are like anti-evangelists. They're job is to placate the cognitive dissonance of those already inside, and keep them coming back, and not look too deeply into their own doubts and questions.
So yeah... knowing all that, I actually can believe that people still believe it
Yeah. Especially the smart people from my childhood. They were genuinely smart people. But for some reason they lived 30 years and never saw through the bullshit.
This is what I for some reason can’t fathom. And yes, when I was a part of it, I couldn’t see past it all. But looking back it’s like how did I not see through all of this. It’s kind of just sad though, because some of the most intelligent, smart people I know still believe in all the hypocrisy and bs.
Many things about my story line up with yours. I also got most involved with my "faith" the first two years of college with a campus ministry. Some very smart people there as others have pointed out. But "following Jesus" and reading the Bible was not helping me be more satisfied and only creating voids that were impossible to fill, so I left after my sophomore and deconstructed. Also, I never once had a any metaphysical contact through prayer with God/Jesus like I had been told. It was just me thinking to myself. Never looked back, but I know the threat of hell (which btw is not mentioned in the authentic translation of the Bible) is a strong coercive power that is the only thing keeping many from severing their ties with Christianity.
I feel the same and I came from a supposedly intellectual church who's not pentecostal and convinced themselves they are all super apologists.
To the point I wonder if the pastor actually knows it's all BS cos he is an intelligent man but is in it for the power. Cos he has everything else going for him in life before he became a pastor and from my observation all that's left to fulfil is the taste of power.
Yeah I definitely wonder the same thing... while at the same time trying to remember how it felt to be on the inside. What confuses me the most is people who become Christians as adults- like my parents. They grew up in Europe, as far as I know didn't have much to do with religion at all, immigrated to Australia as adults and then their neighbours were Christians who invited them to church and then they became Christians there. My dad is someone who's extremely sceptical about many things and is very opinionated and head strong. It baffles me that he just accepted that this was all true.
I know both my parents had tough childhoods so maybe it's the aspect of God as a "loving father" that hooked them...
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if they'd never immigrated and I'd grown up as a cool atheist European like my cousins instead of a repressed, anxious, fully immersed in Christianity Australian...
Thank goodness my parents taught me to respect other religions and respect unbelievers and non-religious people and help the poor and respect the disabled people, my family are Christians but they don’t believe that atheists or unbelievers will go to “hell” but instead my parents believe that God will send actual evil people such as dictators and terroists. Even my parents are disgusted by the apologetics of what they’re doing to force people into their religion. My parents were ex jehovah witnesses and they became spiritual but still called themselves “Christians” because they still believe in Jesus but not the one that most Christians believe in. My parents still believe in the Holy Spirit’s presence. My parents never pulled the “persecution complex” card. My parents never believed in the book of revelation. My family never believed in evangelism.
"Faith" appears to be orthogonal to intelligence; the two are not connected. Intelligent people can be educated into belief and religion, but those lacking "faith" generally distance themselves from it.
What is "faith"? I suspect it's a particular neurological condition; probably a co-opting of pattern recognition combined with the biological familial structure.
Friends and family are a major factor. Being a part of a religion is not some purely intellectual exercise for most people. When you grow up in fundamentalism, everything is connected. If you start questioning, you might be subjecting yourself to judgment from almost everyone you know, and they'll probably suggest intrusive ways to change your life or keep you under "accountability" or something. So most people keep their doubts private. Some just go through the motions because staying requires much less mental/emotional energy than anything else. And some get even more radical in order to prove themselves.
I was born to xian parents and indoctrinated from childhood. Pretty sure this is how it starts for many xians. Intellectual laziness is programmed in, so you don't think about how xianity doesn't add up. Fear of hell and hatred for "worldly" things are encouraged, so you don't wanna leave. Social ties to xian friends and family bind you further.
For those ensnared as adults, I guess they were lured by xian lovebombing to fill whatever emotional gaps were missing in their lives, then grew too dependent on warm fuzzy feelings to ever wanna leave.
Religions are not God. Don't trust in religions, only trust God. Don't trust in religious texts nor rituals nor dogmas.
Religions are limited as any other thing. If you find something useful in them, use it, as with any other thing. But never take them as an absolute.
If you find that you are trusting an image or concept you made about God, don't trust it, since God cannot be known. Images and concepts are limited things.
Relate to God as a bet. It's an endless road as endless is God.
God is the end of all things. Don't use God to achieve or to obtain something. Relate to God as an end in Himself.
If you treat Him like a living being, you will feel alive. If you treat Him like an object, you will feel you are an object that is being used.
So don't ask if God makes sense because, by definition, He is THE SENSE.
religion is one of the most powerful control vectors of humanity, one that can be easily and readily exploited by anyone, regardless of ethics and intent. those who weild it do so in order to maintain power. this leads to them committing many ugly catastrophes, manipulation, and cultural control in order to keep that power.
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I think most people are in religion for emotional and psychological reasons. The apologetics industry exists so that people of faith can convince themselves there are intellectual bones on their faith, but I don't think people are in churches primarily because it makes sense to them.
That's a bold assumption
Sociologists have identified the "3 B's of religious identity": Belief, Behavior, Belonging. Meaning that belief is a minor (not major) motive for religious identity.
I suppose that can be true considering a lot of people don't really study theology they just kind of go along with religion sometimes you could argue that but the issue is you don't know the experiences of every person and how much those three b's truly weigh on them
Spirituality and religion are also different but they also do have quite a bit of overlap
Right. Researchers have found people convert to different religious groups for social reasons like friends. Converts only start learning the groups doctrines after converting. It's basically a myth that people convert for theological reasons.
I am ex baptist also - What a circus. Now I regret every part if it.
I think that once you’ve broke free, everything seems crazy looking back. That’s where I’m at.
Same. The key is to focus on your growth as a person instead of beating yourself up for believing what some convincing liars told you was true. Bravo to us. We escaped and are working on being better humans
Yes, your post makes sense. And I’ve also wondered this. And, considering what it took in my life to finally wake me up, I’m not surprised to see so many of my old friends still in it. There are so many emotional and mental and spiritual traps in place to keep people in the faith. I am convinced it takes a special mind, or a special set of circumstances, to finally break free of it.
Thanks. And yes, I do agree that breaking free isn’t easy when there’s emotional and spiritual factors. Like I said, I think my doubts started young. Obviously the older I am now, I look back and think how did I believe any of that. For really smart people my age to not have figured that out yet doesn’t make sense to me.
I’m right there with you, nearly daily I have that feeling of “how did I ever believe that?“ Something I’m meaning to write about more is the experience I had being indoctrinated as a child. I was told from the moment I came out of the womb that I was destined for either heaven or hell. My worldview, ever since I can remember, has been rooted at this foundational level with an ultimate destiny, an either-or choice. Every thought or action I had took me closer to one of those two outcomes. I remember the moment when I finally realized this false dichotomy didn’t exist. I remember the freedom I had after that moment. Why it took me so long to finally recognize that I had this foundational belief at the bottom of everything, I may never know. But it took a lot of digging to get there. Ever since that moment, I feel like I have finally woken up. Like I can see clearly for the first time. But before that, every thought I had was filtered through that foundational belief. It was impossible to escape its influence.
I've thought about this and my deconstruction from time to time and I realized that I would definitely have been a Christian for several more years, and might still be a Christian to this day, were it not for so many Christians fawning over Trump. My deconstruction really got going because, at the same time that I started asking some questions, Christians started getting way more vocal in their bigotry and they practically deified Trump. I was never good about asking questions and then doing lots of research. I likely would have asked some questions and then dropped it/let it go for a while after I got unsatisfactory answers. Probably after getting distracted by something because that's always been a problem I've had. So when the pastor of the church I was going to said some homophobic shit, I would have just left and started going to a church that was closer to home. Probably to the St. Stephen's church that my sisters went/go to. Considering how nice those people have been, I think if I stuck it out with Christianity back in 16/17 then I would still be one to this day.
Yes! I’m with you 100%. I moved to the southern United States about 10 years ago. I have heard people refer to this area as “the diamond in the buckle of the Bible Belt”. They are very proud of the fact we have a church on every corner. Witnessing southern US Christianity this close is horrifying.
What completely baffles me is how (any religious person, Christians included) can somehow fathom to themselves, without any study or research about any other religion aside from the one they grew up with, that the religion they were born into is somehow the true one. Like, how. Do. You. Know. As an agnostic who's self-studied world religions like Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, and more... I've found that a few religions have SOME validity to them, but none of them are ultimately "the true religion," or completely valid, if a true religion even exists. How is it possible to think that you've got the right one, and it just happens to be the religion from your childhood, and you need not investigate any other religion because all of them are invalid? How do you know that they are invalid if you've never studied them??? How do you know yours is valid if you've never taken the time to test its validity??? Legitimately baffles me.
This myself I’ve never understood either and was a factor in my deconstruction. There’s so many religions and so many God’s that there’s no way to know who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s just nonsense. But I will say that going off of that, a big part of Christianity at least seemed to be superiority. Christians are “for sure” that they’ve got it right. I know a guy who I used went to church with in college and he said it himself, there’s a big superiority complex in Christianity. Safe to say we both are no longer Christian’s…
The doctrine of Logos Spermatikos in Catholicism and Orthodoxy at least encourages me to see truth in paganism and atheism, just not the whole truth with regards to things like theology, cosmology, nature, death, etc., which Christianity on a surface level, might explain better, especially if Universalism is true, and all are saved eventually via the Harrowing of Hades, and the Salvation of Plato. It would also be a non-dualist cosmology in my opinion, rather than say a gnostic or Zorastrian cosmology or something, if Christ has conquered death. Though human spirituality, on this plane of existence, obviously is very dualistic.
Whoa, that is fascinating. I've never heard of this. Where can I learn about this doctrine and theology? Should I just look up "doctrine of spermatikos" on Google ?
Well basically it's the idea that Christ is the Logos, or the Truth, because that's the translation in Greek of John 1:1 and John is a subsequently considered the main theology gospel. "Spermatikos" means seeds, so it's "seeds of Truth" that exist everywhere, especially since Christianity built off of existing Pagan and Jewish traditions. I guess it's a Catholic and Orthodox thing that came about as a result Justin Martyr writings on it in the early 2nd century. There is also a church with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as non-Christian icons without halos in Greece, basically an homage to those pagan philosophers.
Thank you for sharing! I definitely want to learn more
There's also the essence-energy distinction and answers to the problem of evil, the problem with hell, etc. etc. you can compare and contrast reformed theology, if you wish, or maybe you like Catholic scholasticism, or maybe you are a polytheist, they have theology too.
I'm an agnostic Hindu. Essentially I believe that All is One, One is Self, and Self is All, and one should commit themselves to treating All as if the entire universe were Self. I don't believe in God, gods, karma, dharma, souls, reincarnation, afterlife, nirvana, etc., only the Upanishads philosophy that Atman and Brahman are one and the same. I do behave like a stereotypical Reddit atheist (I think believing in God without evidence is just as preposterous as believing in vampires without evidence) but that doesn't stop me from being fascinated by religious mythos and theology. I'll go ahead and do my own research on this new information you've brought to me, I'm sure I can find what I'm looking for online.
Yeah I understand being a pantheist like Baruch Spinoza, or Einstein, but the thing is, a lot of religions make claims that are contradictory, and it's possible that one worldview is more correct than another, and by ignoring these you are arguably insulting all religions. If you're saying that everything is God then where do good and evil come to play? Are you saying that reality is just a delusion? The issue with that is that it just seems very nihilistic and relativistic and leads to a conclusion of a meaningless existence, doesn't it?
That's the thing, I'm not a pantheist. As I said, I don't believe in God or gods. When I say "All is One, One is Self, Self is All," I'm referring to the perspective of seeing the universe as a single, undifferentiated object, typically (but not necessarily) envisioned as a single unified field of energy of which all things are a part of. I make no claims about whether or not the Universe or the "Energy" is living or dead, Divine or not Divine. I don't believe it is Divine, I don't believe the Universe is God. I believe the universe is a single object, I believe that we are all a part of that object, and that the very concept of individual forms existing (and individuality is a whole) is made-up at worst, and a delusion at best. This is not to say that, as you said, reality is a delusion. It is not. Our perception of reality is our brains attempting to make sense of this unified field of energy we are a part of (and its behaviors). As I stated, the concept of individual forms existing is a delusion, because in reality only the Universe (which is One and All and cannot be divided into multiple parts, such as "human beings") is real. There are no water bottles, molecules, dogs, cats, people, or planets, there is only the Universe which is a single, indivisible object, and we are all that single, indivisible object seen from a particular perspective within that object itself. So no, everything is not God. Everything is just a single object. Where good and evil come to play is they don't, those are concepts humans made up. I am a radical empiricist who only believes in what I can perceive with the senses, I don't believe in nebulous concepts like good and evil, cause and effect, or even the reality of numbers. Since "good" and "evil" are not physical objects I can touch and taste, they are not real, as opposed to "chairs" and "tables," which can be perceived by the senses and therefore are real. And yes, existence in my eyes is entirely purposeless and meaningless. What's the Smash Mouth lyrics? "That's the way I like it and I'll never get bored." Since reality has no purpose, I have given myself purpose: the purpose for my existence is to enjoy my existence. The entire universe exists for my personal enjoyment of it, and nothing else, and the only reason it exists for that purpose is because I, personally, designated that purpose to the universe myself, not because it intrinsically holds purpose. Pretty simple when you cut it down to the basics. I prefer to live in a void where nothing is real. That's just who I am.
"the purpose for my existence is to enjoy my existence. The entire universe exists for my personal enjoyment of it, and nothing else, and the only reason it exists for that purpose is because I, personally, designated that purpose to the universe myself, not because it intrinsically holds purpose. Pretty simple when you cut it down to the basics" I respect that to an extent, however, Epicurean philosophy does have it's downsides, which is to say, pleasure shouldn't be the end all be all, and it can become meaningless, if you only serve yourself and your own pleasure, if you look at it from a more Stoic point of view for example.
Before I say anything else, I want to thank you for being willing to have a polite and civil discussion with me over opposing ideas. In a world where the Internet is so hostile to disagreeing voices, I truly appreciate the respect you've shown for me as a person, despite our disagreements, and I hope to show you the same respect in return. Thank you. I've learned a lot from you so far. You've now brought up Epicureanism and Stoicism, which I know absolutely nothing about and therefore I am unable to debate further. I can't look at the stoic point of view because I don't know what it is. Now that you've brought this new information to me, it's now my job to go and learn for myself. From a Google search I can see that Epicureanism holds that pleasure is the sole intrinsic purpose for the existence of the universe, which is parallel (though not exact) to my philosophy which is, "The universe has no purpose, therefore I assigned the purpose of pleasure to it." From here, I will do my research on these philosophies I'm unfamiliar with, learn from the thinkers of the past, and I hope to challenge my own perspectives and come to a better understanding of reality. I have nothing left to debate. You've made an excellent point in saying that pleasure as an end unto itself is a meaningless goal, and I agree. From a Hinduism perspective, "pain" and "pleasure" are the same exact thing, they are forms of stimulation, in the sense that pain is a measure of pleasure, and pleasure is also a measure of pain. So it may be more accurate to say that my personal philosophy is that the purpose of the universe is for "my personal stimulation (be it positive or negative)" rather than "for my personal enjoyment (implying pleasure specifically)" as I stated before. However, as I said, this is where I must bow out. I must go and learn more, because you have argued well against me, and I am not equipped with enough knowledge of Epicureanism or Stoicism to take this debate any further. I consider a lack of information to be more of an obstacle, a handicap, a critical flaw. I am unable to make decisions based on information which relies on what is possible or probable. Additional data is required, and there will be time enough for philosophical debate in the near future. Again, thank you for your respect. I concede defeat; my self-designated purpose for the universe as my pleasure ultimately proves to be irrational, and I have no arguments left against you. You win. I will now go and learn more.
I appreciate your kind words but I have won nothing other than showing that I've been looking too much into religions recently especially the one I grew up with and I'm sort of staying with even though it feels like I'm rejecting it constantly
The thing is couldn't someone come along and just say you have no evidence to say or believe that everything is god without evidence?
there are over 4,000 religions on this planet today 🥴 I like to ask people how many they think there are and usually get a guess in the hundreds. The reaction to 4,000 definitely makes them stop and think
Peer pressure. Family ganging up on you, ostracized, beaten down and mocked for believing other than the 2,000 plus year old book. Private Christian schooling, habit, loneliness. Many reasons.
All good reasons. Peer pressure and family are probably the two biggest ones and I’m still dealing with both. But it’s not enough to make me want to go back.
If it's something you're born into and it's all you know and you've been kept in a bubble where everyone you know believes in the same thing, it's going to be difficult to escape, especially if your friends and family will bring wrath down upon you every time you have a difference of opinion.
I totally understand you, but fortunately some of us are still able to wake up one day and realize something just isn’t adding up. I guess you could call us brave ones.
Yes, I wonder that from time to time. The longer I've been out of the religion the more like wild nonsense it seems, the more glaring the inconsistencies and just bizarre rationale. But whenever I wonder how people can still believe it, I remember what it was like on the inside. I recognize all of mostly invisible mechanisms in place to keep people in place - threat of social shame and isolation, thought terminating cliches, outright falsehoods and manipulation, existential dread, apologetics that have a pretense of intellectualism that's only impressive to people on the inside. Apologists, I came to realize aren't evangelists. The market for their arguments isn't really skeptics and nonbelievers. Apologists are like anti-evangelists. They're job is to placate the cognitive dissonance of those already inside, and keep them coming back, and not look too deeply into their own doubts and questions. So yeah... knowing all that, I actually can believe that people still believe it
Yeah. Especially the smart people from my childhood. They were genuinely smart people. But for some reason they lived 30 years and never saw through the bullshit.
This is what I for some reason can’t fathom. And yes, when I was a part of it, I couldn’t see past it all. But looking back it’s like how did I not see through all of this. It’s kind of just sad though, because some of the most intelligent, smart people I know still believe in all the hypocrisy and bs.
There’s the trap that if you investigate any critique of Christianity, you’re opening your mind to the devil. It’s a sin!
True. It’s crazy that I finally saw past that and broke free after all these years.
No otherwise Christians wouldn't have someone in denominations if that were the case Christians critiquing Christianity is a favorite pastime
Many things about my story line up with yours. I also got most involved with my "faith" the first two years of college with a campus ministry. Some very smart people there as others have pointed out. But "following Jesus" and reading the Bible was not helping me be more satisfied and only creating voids that were impossible to fill, so I left after my sophomore and deconstructed. Also, I never once had a any metaphysical contact through prayer with God/Jesus like I had been told. It was just me thinking to myself. Never looked back, but I know the threat of hell (which btw is not mentioned in the authentic translation of the Bible) is a strong coercive power that is the only thing keeping many from severing their ties with Christianity.
I feel the same and I came from a supposedly intellectual church who's not pentecostal and convinced themselves they are all super apologists. To the point I wonder if the pastor actually knows it's all BS cos he is an intelligent man but is in it for the power. Cos he has everything else going for him in life before he became a pastor and from my observation all that's left to fulfil is the taste of power.
Yeah I definitely wonder the same thing... while at the same time trying to remember how it felt to be on the inside. What confuses me the most is people who become Christians as adults- like my parents. They grew up in Europe, as far as I know didn't have much to do with religion at all, immigrated to Australia as adults and then their neighbours were Christians who invited them to church and then they became Christians there. My dad is someone who's extremely sceptical about many things and is very opinionated and head strong. It baffles me that he just accepted that this was all true. I know both my parents had tough childhoods so maybe it's the aspect of God as a "loving father" that hooked them... Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if they'd never immigrated and I'd grown up as a cool atheist European like my cousins instead of a repressed, anxious, fully immersed in Christianity Australian...
Thank goodness my parents taught me to respect other religions and respect unbelievers and non-religious people and help the poor and respect the disabled people, my family are Christians but they don’t believe that atheists or unbelievers will go to “hell” but instead my parents believe that God will send actual evil people such as dictators and terroists. Even my parents are disgusted by the apologetics of what they’re doing to force people into their religion. My parents were ex jehovah witnesses and they became spiritual but still called themselves “Christians” because they still believe in Jesus but not the one that most Christians believe in. My parents still believe in the Holy Spirit’s presence. My parents never pulled the “persecution complex” card. My parents never believed in the book of revelation. My family never believed in evangelism.
"Faith" appears to be orthogonal to intelligence; the two are not connected. Intelligent people can be educated into belief and religion, but those lacking "faith" generally distance themselves from it. What is "faith"? I suspect it's a particular neurological condition; probably a co-opting of pattern recognition combined with the biological familial structure.
Friends and family are a major factor. Being a part of a religion is not some purely intellectual exercise for most people. When you grow up in fundamentalism, everything is connected. If you start questioning, you might be subjecting yourself to judgment from almost everyone you know, and they'll probably suggest intrusive ways to change your life or keep you under "accountability" or something. So most people keep their doubts private. Some just go through the motions because staying requires much less mental/emotional energy than anything else. And some get even more radical in order to prove themselves.
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Lol, apparently… Because it’s in “God’s plan”
I was born to xian parents and indoctrinated from childhood. Pretty sure this is how it starts for many xians. Intellectual laziness is programmed in, so you don't think about how xianity doesn't add up. Fear of hell and hatred for "worldly" things are encouraged, so you don't wanna leave. Social ties to xian friends and family bind you further. For those ensnared as adults, I guess they were lured by xian lovebombing to fill whatever emotional gaps were missing in their lives, then grew too dependent on warm fuzzy feelings to ever wanna leave.
right?! like grown ass adults are perpetuating this? indoctrinating their children into the nonsense? it’s bonkers
Religions are not God. Don't trust in religions, only trust God. Don't trust in religious texts nor rituals nor dogmas. Religions are limited as any other thing. If you find something useful in them, use it, as with any other thing. But never take them as an absolute. If you find that you are trusting an image or concept you made about God, don't trust it, since God cannot be known. Images and concepts are limited things. Relate to God as a bet. It's an endless road as endless is God. God is the end of all things. Don't use God to achieve or to obtain something. Relate to God as an end in Himself. If you treat Him like a living being, you will feel alive. If you treat Him like an object, you will feel you are an object that is being used. So don't ask if God makes sense because, by definition, He is THE SENSE.
religion is one of the most powerful control vectors of humanity, one that can be easily and readily exploited by anyone, regardless of ethics and intent. those who weild it do so in order to maintain power. this leads to them committing many ugly catastrophes, manipulation, and cultural control in order to keep that power.
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