I'm interested in attempting to talk about your beliefs and opinions surrounding religion, spirituality, and "God"

I'm sure many people here have seen it before, but I've always found Stephen Fry's response to an interview question about his atheism posed by Irish broadcaster Gay Byrne to be breathtaking in its eloquence - and I think it surmises my feelings on God and faith better than I ever could myself.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo

As an aside: I feel "national treasure" is an overused epithet, but I can think of few people more deserving of it than Stephen Fry.

Thanks for making this thread OP, it's been interesting to read everyone's responses. Many have brought up extremely good and valid points that show the flaws of religion and how it can be used for selfish and destructive purposes.

I am a Christian, which makes me feels vulnerable to put out there in this thread where many people have stated their dislike of religion. However, I feel like one of the greatest strengths of ~ at the moment has been its discussions, so here's my contribution.

Loving God, loving each other and loving the world is my current church's mission statement. I have been to many churches which I don't agree with, but I this church aligns with what I personally believe and has avoided many of the issues with organized religion. The focus here is on love, not following rules or preaching fire and brimstone. Jesus's teaching was focused on love and forgiveness, which I think is contrary to many current churches. Jesus ate dinner with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:15), he didn't cast them out, he showed them love and compassion. For me, the focus of Christianity is spreading love and compassion - not preaching on a street corner and trying to relentlessly convert people. Also, Jesus was largely "against" the Pharisees (Jewish religious leaders) because they taught judgement and disallowed common people to read the Bible.

Christianity is what I have found to be the most "true" thing for me, evoking something deep inside me which I cannot explain or quantify. Many people often try to prove or disprove the existence of a god, however, I don't think either is possible. My beliefs are obviously very personal to me, but I have faith that God does exist, despite the fact that I cannot irrefutably prove it with analytical science. I try not to be preachy about my faith IRL (and have never mentioned it online until now), but rather try to just show love and kindness to everyone.

Destin's (of Smarter Every Day) take here on Christianity and his faith is a good summation of why I believe what I do. He even states that there has been a lot of evil done in the name of religion (the Crusades, the Catholic church's indulgences). I think faith is focused on love, whereas religion is often focused on being right and control first and foremost.

If you have read all of this, thank you, I've tried to explain my faith as best I can. Regardless of your personal beliefs, I hope that this was at least a little bit insightful.

I was raised in a church (maybe more of a cult) in the western United States. The church I was a part of was profoundly into the supernatural. They believed in and practiced faith healings, speaking in tongues, exorcisms, being “slain in the spirit”, prophecies and all the like. “Jesus Camp” is a decent example of what it was like.

I was homeschooled for my whole life until I went to college. I had always been interested in science so naturally that’s what I studied. I had been taught about a 6,000 year old earth with an intelligent designer for my whole life.

In my first year I was taking a cell biology course. A key concept in this course was evolution. After much wrestling with myself I came to really appreciate evolution and how obvious and beautiful it was. I came to the conclusion that god created and facilitated evolution.

A few months later, Ken Ham was going to debate Bill Nye. Not knowing who Ken Ham was, I was expecting a Christian who would intelligently, rationally and scientifically defend creationism. Anyone who has seen the debate can tell you that that is not what I got. The debate left me confused, a little angry and desperately wanting more. It was the catalyst that lead to a years long journey for truth and peace.

I discovered that I am an atheist and can’t really say that I ever truly believed in God or Christianity. Coming out as an atheist ruined my life. My parents don’t speak to me. Siblings don’t speak to me. Many friends don’t speak to me. I’m not allowed to see my niece.

At the same time, I find the world to be a much more beautiful place than it was when I was a “believer”. I find I’m happier and more at peace.

Some books that helped me along the way in case anyone who reads this is also struggling with deconversion/doubt: Cat’s Cradle -Kurt Vonnegut, Undeinable - Bill Nye, Siddartha - Hesse, The Bible, Waking Up - Sam Harris and many more.

I'm a firm atheist and have been for my entire life. My parents never specifically encouraged me to be part of a religion (they didn't discourage either though), and I decided after listening to all of them that they are likely to be false. I'm a very evidence minded person, and the lack of any proof or correlation to any of their claims makes me skeptical any of it is true, especially when many supporters of Christianity for example will agree that parts of the bible are and aren't true, based on what's convenient (like for example, that eating shrimp is a sin). I'm also put off by the highly exclusionary and sometimes frankly aggressive behavior of most organized religions. And lastly, most religions don't provide a satisfying explanation of why the world works the day it does - for example, if god is all powerful, why are there people suffering and in pain? Is he in fact not all powerful and can't help most people? Or is he and chooses for them to be like that? Why do people who have full access to a bible and the support of god still sin? If humans are created by him in his image, why are we imperfect? What would be the point of heaven and hell if he could just make every person a perfect version of themselves? Stuff like that.

Therefore, I believe that treating people well is part of basic human duty, and that a god is unnecessary. We don't need supernatural powers, a rigid belief system, or the selfish goal of life in paradise to be good people :)

Started life in the typical American manner, grew up going to Sunday school and church but never really “bought in” and by my early teens I was a vocal atheist. These days I’m not a member of that club so much but not because of any born again suchness.

I stopped being an atheist I suppose when instead of banishing God I merely redefined the term breathing new life into the concept for me.

That’s where I discovered my individual power truly, was that these concepts are spaces in which man has nearly infinite power so why not exercise some of it? I took back the words and phrases, changed them to mean what I wished them to mean and went forward from a fresh starting point.

What matters (imo) is what matters to the individual. Does it bring meaning or happiness into your life rather than confusion and suffering? Does it empower you or make you feel lowly and disenfranchised? These things matter over the course of a lifetime and belief sets can aid in mitigating the suffering if utilized correctly.

So what is my God? Whatever underlies all of existence. Somewhere “down”, waaay down there is likely a plenum of some sort. Some means of conveyance for all the energy in totality. That which is impossible to separate from everything else. That works just fine for my God. An ever present state in which all that can be can not escape. It doesn’t have to wear a robe or be a being.

I too over the years have had the various ecstatic experiences (typically induced by entheogenic/psychedelic compounds) and they have helped shape my world view to an extent but I always try and keep one foot on the path of empiricism so as not to get too lost in the wilderness that is human belief systems.

I’ve always been a fan of comparative religious studies just to sort out the wheat from the chaff, as it were. I don’t think that religions are wholly good or bad as they’re reflections of mankind but I don’t believe for a second that they are completely devoid of wisdom either but it helps (for myself at least) to hold them up against each other (and scientific inquiry where appropriate) in order to suss out inconsistencies and behavioral control structures.

Anyways, that’s some of my ramblings on the matter as well.

I just wanted to thank you for this kind of topic.
I've had quite a particular experience with spirituality and as of today I consider myself an atheist. I will not go into details with this comment as it's just quite late and my personal story and opinion is quite complicated and I still struggle to comes to terms with it but I just wanted to say I appreciate this topic as spirituality is something that is not discussed that much anymore.
Like if it's some thing that we should reject as society because we evolved in this internet-dependent being.
Useless to say I think it's wrong and no matter which belief you decide to follow, it helps giving you purpose.
I'll probably come back to this topic later on when I feel like writing something much more consistent and personal.

Frequently, the problem with these discussions is that they center on the question, "Do you believe in God?" I reject this question entirely as it is seriously flawed. In order to say if you believe in God, you have to define what God is, but anything that could be considered God is indefinable.

Obviously then, I do not believe in any of the Gods described by the worlds religions. I don't consider myself an Atheist either. How can you say, "no Gods exist?, without defining all the possible characteristics of every possible "God"?

What I do believe in draws heavily from Taoism, my background in Physics and Astronomy, and my own thoughts on nature and the Universe.

Tao means "way" or "path", but what it really means is the natural order of the Universe. It is everything that ever was and ever will be, and it is nothing. It is unknowable. I can see the very edges of Tao when I sit in the forest and get the faintest sense of the order underlying the chaos. The way the dead trees have fallen the way they have. The decay feeding life. Everything in perfect balance. I try to live my life within that balance, because forcing your will on the Universe leads to conflict and suffering. Basically, I go with the flow.

I could talk about this all day, but I'll end by talking about death. Religion always comes up when talking about death. My first wife was Christian. She used to pray for me because I was going to hell, because I didn't believe in the Christian God. The problem with the heaven and hell ideas is that they assume that your consciousness and your memories stay intact when you die, as part of your "soul". We don't know very much about consciousness, and it may be possible, but I don't think so. She asked me what I believe happens when we die. I said Conservation of Energy tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed to other forms of energy. So the collection of energy and matter that is our body (and consciousness?) breaks down and eventually disperses throughout the rest of the Universe. She found this idea horrific. But for me, I can't think of anything more beautiful.

I am agnostic and I rely a lot on history to make conclusions. I am fascinated by history surrounding religion.

The best way to sum up my beliefs is from the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. He talks about how religion is a tool that was used to bind the masses. It is a collection of stories that teaches an entire group how to behave together.

Beyond that, I personally believe their is no use for it. The reason Muslims and Christians are so Dominant is not because their God is the one true God. It is because they were the mightiest group of people. I only imagine how many religions have been slaughtered, but if you look at where most Christians and Muslims live, they strongly correlate with the borders of ancient civilizations. Borders carved with blood and steel, not love and peace.

I dream of a book to guide the masses that we can all agree upon, but an unfortunate rule of life is "He who has the biggest sword makes the rules."

I don't believe in any sort of God. I was raised religious (although loosely) but I honestly can't remember when I started to question the existence of God, but I know it was early on, before I was a teenager.. In my country, you are christened into religion (Evangelical Lutheran) and I just, I never believed in it. I always thought that the idea of an invisible force that cannot be seen, measured, calculated or otherwise manipulated (whether physically or in theory) was ridiculous and unbelievable.

And in any case, I find the idea of religions idiotic. The fact that some people need religion in order to be kind, in order to not hurt others, in order to have discipline in their lives, in order to have faith in themselves is just ridiculous to me. It baffles me how much people let these beliefs control their lives and how much people take on blindly. For example, Elvis died over 40 years ago and yet in 40 years, there have been numerous theories and suggestions as to what exactly was in Elvis' favorite banana/bacon/whatever sandwich and yet he died just over 40 years ago. And then we have religious texts that are centuries old and people dare say that there have been no mistranslations or misinterpretations of such texts. I believe that the texts for every single religion in existence have been created by man in order to gain control and nothing else. I believe that all religions are just advanced fear mongering and spreading of false information.

I want to emphasize that I have nothing against any particular religions and that I hate the idea of religions and Gods themselves and not the people that believe in those things and practice those things and preach those things. I am not saying that people aren't at all fault, but I am saying that I put the biggest blame on the religions themselves, not their followers.

I was born and raised in the American South.

Like many kids, I attended church. I continued to do so as a young adult. However, I was constantly unable to reconcile what the bible and the pastors said, vs. what I could see, hear, or read.

Eventually, it came to a head, and I renounced my faith. I'm now quite happy being an agnostic.

Some people from back then, even today, say things like "If you don't believe in god, where will you get your morals from?" and I tell them that I was raised with morals by my mother (who did not go to church when I was a kid), and that those same morals will continue to serve me for the rest of my life. To them, not being faithful is automatically translated into "being immoral".

Sufi Gabriel Khan, once said: “Truth is like a great mirror, shattered by time into a hundred thousand pieces, which enables all who possess a small fragment, to declare, ‘My Religion - Truth, is the true one.’”

That said, I recognize the need/desire for it (religion). I recognize the value of community and support systems based in religious groups. I work in the medical field with people who are terminally ill, and I've developed the ability to roll with whatever my patient believes. I'm here to help you be comfortable, which extends to supporting your beliefs (within reason).

I draw the line of "acceptance" of other religions where they are used to keep any member of society down. I'm a firm believer that you can do what you want, as long as you're not standing on someone else or their rights to do it.

I was a staunch atheist but became somewhat spiritual and think that there is some form of "higher power".

However, I'm completely against just about all forms of organized religion. I understand their purpose and think they provide a useful sense of community for vulnerable people, but I fail to see why that sense of community can't be created without this veil of mystery.

What really gets me is that people say they're a member of a religion but pick and choose what is true and what's not. I like to ask Catholics if they believe that when they eat communion they are eating the literal body of Christ. Most don't.

Religion and spirituality have been a very important issue to me throughout most of my life. I've gone through a handful of paradigm-shift events in connection to the topics, and would say that right now I'm uncertain what is true or what I believe.

I was a Christian (Presbyterian), an edgy atheist, an agnostic, a new-age spiritualist, I even wondered at one time if a certain interdimensional alien might have the answers.

I'd say of all the religious groups, none annoys me more than the internet atheists. Fundamentalist Islam (i.e. those which hold to the bukhari/hadiths and the more violent commandments in them) may be the most dangerous and frightening on the planet at this time, but for whatever reason the internet atheists invoke a particular kind of irritation - perhaps it's the same sense that one has when one's own brethren behave stupidly or arrogantly. Naturally #notallatheists are enlightened by their own intelligence, etc., it's in all likelihood a vocal minority. I still get peeved. Maybe it's embarrassment for how I must have been perceived when I was like that.

Jordan Peterson helped me to see at least the allegorical value of Christianity, and listening to some of his lectures I've developed a deep appreciation for Christianity's incalculable impact on western civilization from a purely psychological/sociological perspective.

From a moral perspective, I think modern protestant Christianity has it basically right. There are people who fake it, who fake it to themselves, but the moral principles are basically good.

On the technical matter of the existence of god, the creation of life and the universe, the nature of the soul, existence of heaven or hell, etc. etc.... I am not certain - which is a much more optimistic place than I used to be. I like to think of myself as analytical, logical, and issues like this fascinate me - while at the same time they can terrify me if i focus on them too deeply. I suppose if there is one thing I think is likely to be true, it is that there must necessarily be some state or existence that is acausal from which our universe/reality has sprung forth. I'd also say that there are some extremely uncanny events and phenomena which are not comfortably explained by a strict materialist worldview, in my estimation.

I'd just like to say that one of the biggest problems I find with mainstream religions is the anthropomorphization of God. To try and pack into a humanoid figure comparable to people whatever it is folks decide to call God seems to me to bring so many problems to the table.

I believe if this were not the case, mutual understanding would be considerably easier to achieve. I think, as with most things, the conflict between sides, between believers and non believers or different kinds of believers stems in great part from using different definitions and not caring about reaching an agreement about the value and meaning of words, in religion and in many other fields. Taking definitions for granted is an inexhaustible source of conflict.

i was raised mormon, but that didn't last very long. logic is a cruel mistress. its clear to me that known religion...nay...anything supernatural...is pure gibberish. humas beings are liars, and are constantly lying to each other for almost no reason, let alone giving them a good one. once you throw that into every religion origin story, not a single one has merit. zero.

on those "god like feelings" or "spirituality". its all in your head, quite literally, the chemicals in your brain are forcing you to feel those things. the same chemicals that force me to love my wife and have me defend my children over all others and makes me eat that 3rd donut i know will hurt later. the idea that you would believe in a religion from a single personal feeling in your own brain seems absolutely absurd to me, but i read it all the time.

the religious seem to ignore the incredible fallibility baked into our own brains. completely oblivious to the fact that your own feelings do not make a deity. many clinging to some notion that we are all that more special that the other self aware mammalian species.

i find the entire notion of religion, god, the spiritual to be utter silliness and it's almost beyond me why otherwise intelligent people will disregard the reality around them and cling to the stories told to them by other human beings that directly contradict that reality.

I have had near death experiences. i have felt "spiritual"...but i recognize it for what it really is; my own stupid bag of chemicals lying to me. i think ill have another donut

Hey. Another user posted this today and it sums up my beliefs well. I thought you might be interested.

https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans/up-next

The only thing that bothers me when it comes to discussions about religion (which is the same for just about any discussion, just more common in religious discussions) is the certainty that people seem to have when they speak. I'm glad that is mostly devoid from this thread and that people are sharing and interacting with one another.

I also think you, @ian, might be temperamentally perfectly suited to have started this sort of discussion.

My typical stance on this sort of question is that anyone who pretends to know The Truth of whether there is a divine being, and what form it takes, probably needs to pretend. I don't know, and it largely doesn't impact me (though the institution is usually mighty nice), and I'm certainly not going to spend much energy looking for a group of like minded individuals because nothing irritates me more than someone saying what I was going to say (I'm unique, damnit!).

That's not to say there aren't fascinating ideas out there about what form, if any, a divine being (or more) takes. It's more to say that each story seems to tell more about the people who repeat them than it does about any essential truth of the universe. I find people incredibly interesting, so I can accept this trade off.

Since we're sharing backgrounds, might as well join in. Catholic schooling (as a young, budding agnostic, but I was willing to play along), Brotherhood and Lutheran pastors' kids for friends once I left Catholic school, had an angry atheist phase that lasted all of the 9th grade before I gave it up to return to acquiescent agnosticism. I've had religious friends all my life (how can you not in the United States, especially the midwest), so I could see the good religious institutions do for people right up front and personal.

To expand on that, there is a phase in just about everyone's lives where they wonder who they are, and more importantly who they want to become. Having a clear answer to either one of those questions is such a huge relief to any young person, especially since none of us really understand the world all that well (there's simply too much information), and there is a reasonable range of options available to most youths on how to go about living their lives. How do you want other people to think of you? What do you want to spend your time doing? These are the questions that a half-way competent religious institution can help people answer, and they're just the sort of questions that almost no other institution in this country at least is good at helping kids grapple with meaningfully.

I was raised Christian, became an atheist as a teenager but have recently found myself questioning again. I have no intention of going back to Christianity but I think there is something to be said for a higher / shared consciousnness. Many (especially eastern) religions have a lot to say about these subjects and have found myself more gravitated towards that sort of thing. I’m not denying these sorts of concepts can’t be explained by science but until we figure it out I can only chalk it up to “spirituality”. I have a very hard time believing the way we perceive our universe is the way it is “because it is” just as much as I have a hard time believing there is a higher power sentencing me to eternal damnation for masturbating.