I’d consider myself somewhere between spiritual and maybe kind of pagan, idk

Most of my practice revolves around plants and crystals (no I’m not going to sell you some alternative medicine bullshit, science and spirituality are separate and any mixture doesn’t end well) ex catholic so I burrow small aspects from that but tend to avoid it mostly. Been looking into deities lately but haven’t integrated any into my primary stuff yet.

Also been doing stuff with a tarot deck lately, that’s been fun

  • Badabinski
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    36 months ago

    I’m pretty staunchly atheist. My mom took me to a Unitarian Universalist church for a year or so when I was a kid, and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to church or religion. I mostly went for the hot chocolate because god damn, church hot chocolate just hits different. I grew up in a town in Utah that was 95% Mormon, which was pretty weird in retrospect. I thankfully wasn’t bullied or excluded for my lack of beliefs, but I did have to suffer through a few conversion attempts. My exmo partner likes to make fun of all the ridiculously incorrect things I’ve absorbed via cultural osmosis.

    I do try to give myself some spiritual time. That usually entails looking at the mountains here and thinking the existential thoughts I normally don’t give myself time to think about. If I need to do that while I’m feeling sad or mopey, I’ll make some herbal tea and sip it while I’m chilling. I have a really strong aversion to many other forms of spiritualism (like crystals and some forms of meditation) due to some childhood trauma. I haven’t worked on that trauma because my approach seems to work well enough for me. I only experience existential dread when I fail to take good emotional care of myself.

  • Lumelore (She/her)
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    26 months ago

    I’m also ex-catholic. I left about 6 or 7 years ago, I don’t remember exactly when. For most of those years I’ve been an atheist and didn’t want anything to do with religion or spirituality at all.

    Recently I have been thinking more about spirituality and I have looked into paganism a fair bit. Idk exactly what I am but I view nature and the universe with the same reverence that one would give to a diety, although I don’t view them as being sentient or really personify them in any way, but I think there is something special about them and appreciating them satisfies me spirituality.

    • sleepybisexualOP
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      16 months ago

      Ooh, this one likes your ideas :3 this one believes plants are important too.

  • arsCynic
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    6 months ago

    I’m antireligion:
    To consider antireligion instead of atheism

    “The harm of religion is historically evident whereas the presence or absence of gods is not. Ultimately, the continued existence of religion is predicated on the indoctrination of children and suppression of rational thought. Therefore I am against religion but not necessarily against the idea of gods. For all we know gods are computer scientists and we are in their video game.” —https://www.arscyni.cc/file/antireligion.html

  • TheRtRevKaiser
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    6 months ago

    I’m always a little reluctant to post about religious topics on Beehaw because there’s a pretty strong anti-christian sentiment on Lemmy in general which is, to be fair, entirely understandable.

    I grew up in the “Church of Christ” and my wife and I stayed part of our CoC congregation for a long time mostly because of the support network and personal connections we had built up there, even though we had a lot of problems with evangelical theology and the increasing conservatism. A few years ago we wound up in the crosshairs of a group of deeply unpleasant people because of some comments we made in support of LGBTQ folks, and ended up spiritually homeless for a while. We eventually ended up at a local Episcopal church and while it’s been a big adjustment for us in some ways - we definitely weren’t used to high church liturgy - we’ve really come to love it there. It’s not without problems, but we feel like we’re able to wrestle with our beliefs and still have the support of the community, and we’ve made some close connections there as well.

    Theologically I’m all over the place, so don’t ask me for a firm stance on anything - I’m just making this shit up as I go 😅

    • Vodulas [they/them]
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      46 months ago

      I am pretty staunchly antireligious in my personal life, but I try to meet folks where they are. If you are not a wild evangelical just being hateful all over, then you’re probably good by me. What you believe doesn’t really matter to me until it starts to try to interfere with my life.

    • @[email protected]
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      36 months ago

      I would describe myself as a pantheist: I see the existence of the universe as a whole and the multifaceted consciousness in it as divine. So science is as much a technical as a spiritual journey for me, and love / amazement / experience of the world seems the highest form of living.

      I also feel that children often embody this in a very pure form, and it is only when society and social constructs kick in that we seem to forget our purpose and get all tangled up in imaginary goals and obligations.

    • sleepybisexualOP
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      26 months ago

      I agree with the make shit up as you go sentiment.

      Piece of advice if you want it. Organised religion tends to go south. Feel free to pursue your practice alone or with a few friends

      • @[email protected]
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        16 months ago

        Organised religion tends to go south

        I suspect that this might be true for the older religions? They are just not all that suitable for the times we live in. What I do expect is that the older religions will be replaced by more modern ones, that will turn into organised religion.

      • TheRtRevKaiser
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        56 months ago

        Thanks for the thought - we did a little of this over the last few years but it wasn’t working for us. One of the more important parts of religious practice for both of us is the communal aspect, and as we live in a mid-size city in the Southern U.S. there aren’t very many opportunities outside of a church setting for strong, long-term community building. Not saying there aren’t any, but it’s difficult to build a strong network when third places have essentially disappeared. The Episcopal Church is working for us, at least right now, as a place to build those networks and practice our faith without having to compromise on moral stances that are critical to us.

  • @[email protected]
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    46 months ago

    I am atheist, which is an absence of religion. I do however have a deep appreciation for the arts and sciences, and I have a vision for what the world could and should be like. We don’t have to have homeless people. We don’t have to have hungry people or poverty. The existence of this suffering is a choice that the capitalists make in the pursuit of power.

  • apotheotic (she/her)
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    16 months ago

    (Joke response pls carry on with your discussion)

    I worship women is that spiritual enough finger_point_right finger_point_left :3

  • @[email protected]
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    26 months ago

    I grew up Lutheran, which is basically the closest to being catholic without being catholic.

    I had a great Sunday school teacher who let us question religion and all the stupid things in it.

    As I get older, I feel more like an atheist. Church has become nut bags, and I don’t want to waste my time being lectured when I already live a good life.

    I follow some pagan celebrations. I also donate to The Satanic Temple.

    • sleepybisexualOP
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      26 months ago

      Cool.

      My religious teachers are a big part of why I left. The most vile stuff you’ve heard go brrr

  • Scrubbles
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    106 months ago

    Happily agnostic. Who knows what’s out there. The universe is vast, and we only see a few dimensions. We can’t fathom what is out there or anything about it. So I believe it’s equally arrogant to definitely say there is a god or to say there absolutely is not. Or many gods. Or the Q continuum.

    What I will say is that the church here has both hurt society and hurt my family individually, and has been thoroughly corrupted. I don’t think of any individual as less for believing or not believing in a higher power, it brings comfort, but the organized structure has hurt too many people.

    • Che Banana
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      46 months ago

      We are stardust, billion year old atoms. I’m there with ya.

    • sleepybisexualOP
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      46 months ago

      Yea.I hate organised religion with a passion. The Catholic church has caused so.much harm.

  • HubertManne
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    16 months ago

    I was agnostic and was a constant puruser of religion/philosphy but now I am athiest but like buddhist philosophy along with the tst tenets.

  • @[email protected]
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    6 months ago

    I was raised Catholic, but my mom got me out of religion class at school and let me take “ethics”, where we learned about multiple religions. Then I went one year to a Catholic school… and decided that I was an Atheist.

    After that, I looked at different religions, occultism, parapsychology, and other weird stuff (tarot too)… until I decided that I was going to live according to the scientific method above all, and denounce all sort of beliefs. So I became a Humanist.

    Only I’ve since lost even more trust in humanity, so now I’m a Transhumanist.

    I haven’t been able to practice much lately, but my goals were to either improve humans with technology, or to let technology (AI) take over. It gives me solace to see that even if I can’t contribute much at the moment, the world is pushing towards one of those outcomes.

      • @[email protected]
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        16 months ago

        “Capitalism”, as in those with more wealth having more power, has permeated humanity since forever. The most democratic, theocratic, dictatorial, communist, etc. societies, have all been, and keep being, capitalist at their core, with only a veneer of the flavor of the year.

        I’d say capitalism is intrinsic to humanity… and I don’t see any alternative addressing that core tenet. Most of humanity either exploits it, or doesn’t care at all, which leads me to having very little trust into any solution ever coming from the human side.

        • @[email protected]
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          16 months ago

          The egregiously exploitative flavor of capitalism that exists today is a relatively recent development. I don’t think it’s intrinsic to humanity at all; humanity has been communist for most of our existence. Also, capitalism has a specific meaning; it means the means of production can be privately owned, and that owner gets to decide how many breadcrumbs to give to the workers.

  • @[email protected]
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    16 months ago

    I usually keep this to myself but I believe there is something. I am not sure what but I like the idea that the universe sort of has a will and a consciousness to an extent whether the universe is god or its own thing I don’t know. I think the most important thing is humanity does not let any specifics of their beliefs get in way of seeing all people as equal regardless of religion,ethnicity, sexuality,gender. Or whatever excuse people come up with next to differentiate their group as better than any other.

  • Rowin of Win
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    16 months ago

    Absolutely not, no spirituality or religion at all. Strong beliefs about how the world doesn’t work (lots of specific debunked ideas, lots of ideas that are incoherent or inconsistent) but not sure about a bunch of stuff. I don’t think it would be meaningful to say there is a mind behind the creation of the universe because what we consider a mind and what that mind would have to be are two ideas with almost no overlap. If there is something out there magically making the universe what it is I don’t think we would be able to recognise it at all, let alone communicate with and understand it.

  • PenguinCoder
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    6 months ago

    Interesting discussion and question, thanks!

    I am a reformed catholic. Raised as and confirmed Catholic, but as I’ve gotten older and more rebellious I’ve seen nothing but problems with religion. That is, I am not nor ever been an atheist, but I don’t believe in any man-made religion as truth. They’re shams to take your money; and some do some good for others. I am spiritual and believe in something greater than all of us. Maybe not the puppetmaster, but I feel there is some underlying driving connection and cosmic force we cannot explain or ignore. Your God? My God? Who knows, I do not claim to. But I feel it there and I feel better for it.