Asklemmy

Agnosticism after doubting my way out of Protestantism in my teens. Major contributing factors were my parents' divorce (which was clearly the right thing for them to have done, as one was abusive) and realizing I was queer

I'm split damn near 50/50 on whether I think a deity or deities exist. Physics observations that suggest our universe is a simulation, and weird things about consciousness (dreams, deja vu, near death experiences, psychedelic experiences, cultural parallels in seemingly isolated ancient civilizations, etc.) fascinate me and keep me wondering what might be "up there." At the same time, studying biology made me realize the "power" of randomness over millions of years to "create" what people find meaningful without there necessarily having to be divine influence. Typewriter-monkey-Shakespeare philosophical stuff.

I really, really hope reincarnation or a non-hell afterlife exist, though. I am TERRIFIED of oblivion. :(

Born and raised Muslim, but I think I'm somewhere between that and agnostic now? As a kid I was raised to be extremely religious, then leaned heavily towards hard atheism as a teenager/young adult, but nowadays I just don't find myself thinking about religion or the presence of a higher being. I don't necessarily believe that it doesn't exist, but I don't necessarily believe it does either, if that makes sense.

It gets a little more complicated since my family and community is Arab, and our particular form of Arabic culture is very closely intertwined with the religion, it oftentimes feels like you can't have one without the other. It gets hard to pick and choose which parts of Islam I want to participate in (especially considering there's a lot in Islam that I don't agree with) and still consider myself a "good" Arab. Hell, at that point can I really even call myself a Muslim? Who knows. But in my eyes religiousness is a spectrum, and I move up and down that spectrum a lot, and I think I'm okay with that.

I was brought up as a Reformed/Calvinist christian, I never could fully believe even as a child. Today I consider myself an agnostic atheist. I don't say that there definitely is no god or a higher power because I don't know, but for now I assume there isn't.

I don't want to convert anyone or take their faith away, so I only talk about my reasons for not believing if people try to convince me to believe.

Buddhism. Was raised Christian and my parents forced me to continue going to church even when things started to not make sense in early high school. Went from "You must go to church with us," to "You must go to church SOMEWHERE."

In college, I considered Islam, Taoism, and Buddhism but nothing stuck so I stayed with what was familiar. Finally came back to Buddhism a couple years ago and was like "Yep. This is it." To me, Christianity is a constant moving target that will never be reached in terms of what you're supposed to do and not to and it will generally always be your fault when bad things happen because reasons. It's something you have to carry with you your whole life.

When I first really started learning about Buddhism and learned that it's like a raft that you use to get yourself across the river and you out it down when you don't need it anymore, I was like YES PLEASE SOMETHING ATTAINABLE, EMPOWERING, AND MAKES SENSE.

I see no compelling argument for believing any particular religion.

I'll pick out the good parts of philosophy if you have any but I'll leave the dogma and rituals.

Roman Catholic here. I was born and raised as a Roman Catholic but there was a time in my life that I really wanted to put that to the test since I wasn't entirely sure if I truly believed in it or it was just something that I've known all my life. When I went to university, I took this subject called Medieval Philosophy which focused on the philosophical underpinnings of the Catholic theologians like Thomas Aquinas. Funny enough, it was being taught by an atheist who had a great appreciation for the philosophy behind Catholic theology. It was a life changing experience that not only strengthened my belief in God, but made me understand morality and humanity in a deeper sense.

Hindu, I believe in it because it actually makes sense. I know there is a lot of nonsense in Hinduism like it's there in every religion. Because religions are ultimately jsut tools to power. But i like Hinduism for some of the core beliefs. Some of the important things I like to believe.

1. Change is the only constant in the universe, nothing else stays conatsnt.
2. God is a construct that is unknowable by definition, it's larger than the largest thing, and it's smaller than the smallest thing. It's infinitly big and infinitesimally small at the same time.
3. The morals of how to live life is not something that is defined by God, and God doesn't care one way or the other if someone follows any.

That being said I understand this is not traditional Hinduism. But I find this to the core with anyone that is willing to discuss Hinduism at length will reach at.

I had been going to Sunday School for a year or so and frankly the whole religion thing didn't make any real sense to me in explaining the world around us, humanity, higher powers, or anything. It was a lot of 'trust us' with no substance. So, I told my mum that I didn't want to go to church anymore and she said 'ok' - and we never did again.

I was four (almost five) BTW. At no time in the subsequent 50-odd years have I ever had any doubts about my atheism.

Grew up evangelical. Now I’m not “religious” but am “Christ leaning.” Like, I appreciate the idea of Christ and hope that whatever higher being there might be has some Christlike qualities.

I don’t know. I doubt. I hope. I do shrooms. I’m confident there is more to existence than we know. I hope to leave a legacy of kindness. I like to learn and experience as much as I can. Love wins and transcends. I think enjoying the universe is method of worship. All that shit. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Also, when I was religious I was an amillenial partial preterist which pissed off a lot of bible thumpers in my region. Felt kind of punk to adopt those beliefs. That Left Behind shit is weird and never helped anyone.

Nondualism. I looked in direct experience.

Christian. I have been a non-practising Christian for all my life until my wife and I was through some personal events. And since have I been attending church regularly.

None. I was raised Lutheran and it never really was important to me, just something I was forced to do. I sorta liked the singing and community aspects, but by high school I was done with it. I try not to be a reddit atheist though, I honestly respect anyone whose religion brings them to similar moral conclusions as my own. There is plenty in the christian bible to get you there, helping the poor and the sick, giving up material wealth and living in common, but in america the vast majority of christians do not follow the teachings of jesus in any meaningful way, so I'm not too broken up about no longer being christian, and even the highly progressive churches have often been pretty culty in my and my friends' experience.

Currently I'm non-religious, agnostic, and spiritual in some sense. I was raised Christian, but broke away in my early teen years, mostly due to rhetoric I was hearing from Sunday school and the Church back when I was forced to attend. It also didn't help that my folks are biblical literalists. I was ridiculed quite a lot by my family for being an atheist. I left atheism some years, I had closed myself off to any spiritual or religious, but I thought to myself that it didn't have to be that way.