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9 votes
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Israel Folau's campaign shut down by GoFundMe, donors to be refunded
6 votes -
A fundamentalist community forges a new identity: Hildale and Colorado City, born of fundamentalist LDS doctrine, are rebuilding themselves—but not without holding on to their core beliefs
8 votes -
Has “Homosexual” always been in the Bible?
9 votes -
8chan is raided by the FBI regarding California synagogue shooter
@swodinsky: lmaooooooo 8chan just got search warranted
13 votes -
New York ends religious exemptions for required vaccines
14 votes -
Five trans Catholics on the Vatican’s rejection of their gender identity
7 votes -
Southern Baptists to confront sexual abuse and role of women in the church
4 votes -
Israel Folau to take Rugby Australia to Fair Work Commission over contract termination
4 votes -
Coffee: The muslim drink
12 votes -
Aung San Suu Kyi meets with Hungary’s Orbán to lament their “growing Muslim populations”
7 votes -
The rise of progressive occultism
11 votes -
The world’s oldest medieval map
8 votes -
How Iceland recreated a Viking-age religion - the Ásatrú faith, one of Iceland’s fastest growing religions, combines Norse mythology with ecological awareness – and it’s open to all
23 votes -
To fight anti-semitism, German tabloid prints cutout Kippah
10 votes -
These millennials got new roommates. They’re nuns
7 votes -
The ongoing persecution of China’s Uyghurs
9 votes -
A roundtable on faith depiction in SFF
5 votes -
In 2017, Hussein Kesvani started getting regular Twitter messages from an anonymous Islamophobic user. Eventually he responded, they started talking, and arranged to meet
7 votes -
George Pell's appeal to be broadcast live on Supreme Court website
3 votes -
Gender-segregated swim hours create hot water in some city pools
7 votes -
Lawyers for Noah’s Ark theme park are suing its insurance company for rain damage
6 votes -
India’s Muslims quiver in the new dawn of an emboldened Narendra Modi
10 votes -
The Uniting Church is facing growing unrest as conservative factions push for it to reverse its decision to allow ministers to perform same-sex marriages.
3 votes -
Measles can be contained, anti-semitism cannot: Long-standing stereotypes about Jews have found a new vector in the latest outbreak of the disease
10 votes -
Muslims of early America: Muslims came to America more than a century before Protestants, and in great numbers. How was their history forgotten?
14 votes -
What happened when I met my Islamophobic troll
9 votes -
Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands
10 votes -
Answer Sheet California is overhauling sex education guidance for schools — and religious conservatives don’t like it
10 votes -
Muslim lawmakers host Ramadan feast at Capitol
9 votes -
Losing Religion and Finding Ecstasy in Houston
5 votes -
Missouri HB 126 - "Right to Life of the Unborn Child Act"
9 votes -
Pope Francis stops hiding from the Church’s sexual-abuse epidemic
5 votes -
An abhorrent post, but proverbial Folau death penalty a step too far
4 votes -
Taking mushrooms for depression cured me of my atheism: Psilocybin not only eased my depression, it showed me a new way to live.
22 votes -
Queer Muslim women reflect on navigating their faith and sexuality
6 votes -
Amid measles outbreaks, states consider revoking religious vaccine exemptions
14 votes -
The US movement against female genital mutilation is at a crossroads
4 votes -
Brunei will not enforce death penalty for gay sex following backlash
9 votes -
Ramadan: Three Muslims explain how they combine its spirituality with their busy lives
8 votes -
Conservatives want Catholic bishops to denounce pope as heretic
22 votes -
The powerful group shaping the rise of Hindu nationalism in India
6 votes -
‘I try to spread the joy’: The trans pastor battling intolerance in the Deep South
11 votes -
Crisis of identity for a guy given no direction
Hey Tildians, This is going to be a really long post that is an ongoing search and conversation I am having with myself. Its going to be about religion and culture. Sorry for the shitty title, I...
Hey Tildians,
This is going to be a really long post that is an ongoing search and conversation I am having with myself. Its going to be about religion and culture. Sorry for the shitty title, I am really bad at coming up with titles, I tend to ramble a lot.
I'm currently going through a crisis both of faith and cultural identity. Not because I am questioning either, but because I have never had either. I'm a white man from america. Growing up as a kid, my parents gave me the option to look at religions and choose one if any that spoke to me. None did, so I didn't go for a long time. In high school I attended Methodist Church every weekend because I felt pressured by my Boy Scout troop to be Christian, the Methodist Church let us use their church for our meetings despite none of the troop being members of the church, and the priest there at the time was a really great guy that I liked a lot. I spent a lot of time talking about faith with him and eventually, he said to me "let's face it, you don't believe the things I am preaching. That is completely fine. You're welcome in the church, it'll always be home, I'm always here to talk about faith or life or anything, but you don't believe in Christianity and you owe it to yourself to try and find something you do believe." And he was right, I didn't. So I studied a few things here and there and none ever stuck. So I've just been agnostic. But I desperately want to believe in a religion and have a sense of community and just, something to tie my individual beliefs to the world and know other people feel the same way I do.
Similarly, I grew up pretty much "American". I know my heritage is from Ireland, Poland, UK, Croatia, Germany because I did reports on ancestry in school, but they've never been a part of my identity. We never talk about being from Poland other than explaining to people why my last name is spelled the way it is (WHICH IS STUPID BECAUSE IT'S NOT A WEIRD SPELLING OR PRONOUNCED DIFFERENT THAN IT LOOKS). It just isn't a thing. I've always envied my friends whose families are very proud and invested in their heritage. And that's not for a lack of trying, I've tried to get invested in them, but there aren't really communities around me for it, my family doesn't give a shit, and even if I did, I'm like 15% everything so it doesn't feel like I'm REALLY from that culture. I guess that's why some people are so extreme about being American. They're such a mix of so many different European countries that if a parent isn't invested in a specific culture, it's hard to identify with any single one, so they rally behind America. It is all they have.
I don't know. It's very weird crisis that came out of nowhere in the stupidest ways (rewatching avatar and then having a crisis of faith looking at a chacra candle in a used book store). I've realized that I am paralyzed by the lack of a foundation of my identity. Personality traits and political views and hobbies are all malleable and change over time and so what I define myself as now could be completely gone and irrelevant in 2 years time and something about that terrifies me. It makes me wish there was something I could tie myself to that doesn't change, like what country my family is from. And if not that, an felling like I undestand the world around me would be great, and something religion provides. Also, the community wouldn't be something I'd hate to have.
Tangentially to this, I'm having a weird relationship with faith in another way. I keep finding myself gravitating towards budhism. I don't know why, but it just is what I keep ending up looking at. I have 6 different bibles, a torrah, and a quran that I've read. None feel quite right. I keep ending up reading more about budism. But I feel SO WEIRD about it. It feels like I'm that white dude everyone hates that wont stop talking about budism. I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t let the outside world’s perceptions affect my religious views. But that doesn’t mean it is easy not to.
Guess to make this more of a convo I’ll ask some questions to generate discussion:
Religious folks: How has growing up with a religion effected your life? Do you think you’d be a drastically different person without it?
Atheists: How weird does this sound to you? Did you go through a similar crisis before landing on atheism
People who grew up with a strong cultural identity: How has that effected your life? Are you generally happy that you have that identity and community? Were there ever times you wished you weren’t a part of it?
26 votes -
United Methodist court upholds Traditional Plan’s ban on LGBTQ clergy, same sex marriage
11 votes -
Ignore the Poway Synagogue shooter’s manifesto: Pay attention to 8chan’s /pol/ board
28 votes -
Kenya's first lesbian pastor: Jacinta Nzilani (TV interview)
8 votes -
'It's amazing tatau's persisted': How Samoan tattooing withstood colonialism
6 votes -
Pope Francis' homily at Easter Vigil Mass: Full text
5 votes -
Fireworks and pipe bombs: How Greek towns celebrate Easter
6 votes