Ask Lemmy

Hopefully, a slightly different perspective here...

Religion is not interchangeable with theism. Many people, including me, are religious whilst also being atheists. Depending on the source, religion can be defined as a supernatural based idea (god/gods) or (the way I see it) more like Emile Durkheim saw it "a unified system of beliefs and practices [...] which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."

So, for me, religion gives me a sense of community, support and a structure to guide me. It doesn't rule me and I don't have to worship or pray to a supernatural being that doesn't exist. So in my (biased) view, I get the good bits of religion without the shitty awful bits such as telling everyone only my religion is right, telling everyone what to do based on what I think and generally being an arsehole.

Most people like some type of community because we are, at bottom, social creatures. My own religion allows me to be both individualistic and also part of a community and I think a lot of people feel that their religion gives them that sense of community. A more worrying aspect of religion is theistic religion - worship of a supernatural being/beings - because that is irrational, which is not in itself a concern, but when whole societies are controlled via theism then people suffer.

How did the big bang happen?

I have a minor in religious studies because belief in things outside science seemed ridiculous.

Then, a couple years ago I was walking my dog with my wife talking about Huitzilopochtli & a hummingbird flew from the top of a giant redwood to about a foot from my face, flew in a perfect square 7 times, then back to the top.

Then I was under a sycamore tree at the Rosicrucian temple in San Jose meditating on Hathor & inadvertently copied a statue of Plato when I tried to clean a cobweb off it with a walking stick & a single leaf fell gently to the exact middle of my feet.

Then I was driving & thinking about getting a tattoo of Horus when a falcon began flying next to my head outside my driver’s side window for about 5 seconds, flew past my windshield, perched on a freeway sign & watched me drive off.

I could go on but the gist is I always said I couldn’t believe unless I had concrete proof & now I have concrete proof.

Before ignorance, before community, before any of the "behavior" we typically associate with religious people, comes hubris. Only man thinks he is important enough to be chosen by the almighty God to receive the knowledge that he is special and worthy of an afterlife. Doesn't make people bad, or even stupid, just so preoccupied with philosophical and scientific questions they didn't think to seek out the people that actually have the answers.

I, personally, am a christian-- not despite modern science, but partially because of it. I was raised as christian, but before I made the decision to be baptized I did a lot of research and decided that the Bible has the best explanation for why things are the way they are. What actually disgusts me, however, is when people say that they're a "christian" but then just keep doing whatever they were doing before-- I personally think that many "christians" today behave more like the jewish leaders that killed Jesus than like Jesus Himself. Like Jesus said to them, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!" (mark 7:9).

Mf you are aware of how improbable it is that we exsist in the base reality right?

God seems more likely than the alternative tbh