Atheists, is there anything religious that sticks with you to this day?
I am Ganesh, an Indian atheist and I don't eat beef. It's not like that I have a religious reason to do that, but after all those years seeing cows as peaceful animals and playing and growing up with them in a village, I doubt if I ever will be able to eat beef. I wasn't raised very religious, I didn't go to temple everyday and read Gita every evening unlike most muslims who are somewhat serious about their religion, my family has this watered down religion (which has it's advantages).
But yeah, not eating beef is a moral issue I deal with. I mean, I don't care that I don't eat beef, but the fact that I eat pork and chicken but not beef seems to me to be weird. So, is there any religious practice that you guys follow to this day?
edit: I like religious music, religious temples (Churches, Gurudwara's, Temples & Mosques in Iran), religious paintings and art sometimes. I know for a fact that the only art you could produce is those days was indeed religious and the greatest artists needed to make something religious to be funded, that we will never know what those artists would have produced in the absence of religion, but yeah, religious art is good nonetheless.
I still act respectful in churches and other "sacred" places, not out of any fear of the Magic Sky Wizard, but simply because other people respect them and it seems like a useful thing to encourage, even if I don't agree with the underlying reasoning. Having a place which most of society agrees should be a quiet, comforting sanctuary is not the worst thing at all, even if the comfort is derived from extreme wishful thinking.
Also, Christmas. Christmas music is great. A Charlie Brown Christmas is one of the best holiday albums ever, though we always skip "Hark the Herald Angel Sings" 'cause it's such a tonal shift compared to the rest of the album.
Yeah except that those places are hives of child abuse, homophobia, and science denial.
I don't care how quiet and serene they are while plotting their next acts of bigotry.
dont forget the ubiquitous misogyny!
This is really great. I too try to give sacred places as much respect as I can, simply because I know that matters a lot to folks and helps keep the peace. Atheists could gain a lot from the concept of sacred ground and regular communing, even if not from the same obligation.
I went to Catholic catechism as a child and one of the few things I remember was Jesus washing other people's feet. I like the humility of that and it inspires me to want to do acts of service
Was chatting with a young (17-ish) atheist guy recently who misremembered this as “isn’t there a bit in the bible where Christian licks a prostitute’s feet?” which truly left me with so many things I wanted to say that I could bareky say anything without laughing so much, but I managed to get out “did you think Jesus was called Christian??”
Similar upbringing in Catholic school. Acts of humility like a poor person giving what little they have holds more weight than a king giving their weight in gold, the golden rule, and showing general compassion has stuck with me decades later. Education was pretty good too. None of that dinosaurs lived 6000 years ago or whatever crap. I attribute the education to giving me the critical thinking skills to not fall for the indoctrination. I could tell the poor giving message was a lead in for tithing. Taking a message of helping someone in real need no matter your status to support this church that was the best looking building in town didn't pass the logic test.
I was raised without religion, but read religious texts. I have always wanted to touch my closest peoples feet or wash them. It seems so humble and real.
I still celebrate Christmas - though in more of a yule way than anything resembling christianity. What I think of as the spirit of christmas is...friends/family getting together in winter and sharing what they have.
And, of course, my circumcision...still got that.
Christmas is very pagan.
Not the genital mutilation, though, that's Jewish. I never understood why Christians do it. Didn't Jesus fulfill the law and the prophets? Plus there was a spat over adults converting, but not getting circumcized that was settled on the side of "not required". I may be remembering it wrong.
It's an American thing. Australians mostly see it as mutilation; It isn't religion, it is yanks.
Uh oh, my bias is showing again, lol.
The religious reason for Christianity is actually more complex than a Jewish holdover. It stems from the belief that circumcision will disincentivize masturbation, which is considered a sin by the Catholic Church.
Uh, what? Most Catholics aren't circumcised, that's an American thing.
Masturbation is the sin from the church. The American thing is to have babies circumcised to prevent masturbation
Very on-brand. I'll have to look it up.
didn't the christians get that from a pagan ritual or something? Even muslims are guilty of things like this, I would go on to talk about this if I had someone incharge of my security lol
I think it's more that when the church couldn't stop people from celebrating it, they decided to turn it into a Christian thing instead.
In a way, I try to live my life so that if some kind of higher power existed, they'd think I am a good person. Not as a gambit to get into heaven or whatever, I don't believe in that. But trying to imagine an objective arbiter of morality makes it easier to take myself out of the equation, which means I'm more likely to treat others as I want to be treated.
I use biology. Being grateful and kind just has an evolutionary advantage
Approaching kindness or generosity from a biological point of view seems (to me) to lead to The Prisoners' Dilemma. Everyone is better off if we are all generous, but if I can't trust others to be generous, I'm better off being selfish.
IMHO, religion is an evolutionary adaptation to "solve" this problem. It might have worked in small communities, but not in our global society.
I'm rambling...
It sounds like you might really enjoy an episode of Radiolab, The Good Show, on this very topic, the evolution of altruism. Indeed, digging into it leads them to the Prisoner's Dilemma. One of the segments covers a competition organized by a computer scientist around an iterative cooperate/defect game. Entrants tried to come up with an algorithm that would maximize the benefit to the 'player' in repeated rounds against the computer. I won't spoil it by revealing which algorithm won, but I'll say it's really fascinating.
It does, but the question is: how can we be grateful and kind in the right way? Being grateful and kind to a robber stealing things from your neighbours house is most likely wrong. Being grateful and kind to a single mother stealing food for her child is most likely right. Trying to see things from an objective point of view is a good way for me to do the right things in the right way.
I think it's really more of a sociology thing. Like, it's pretty well accepted that our natural inclination towards fairness is not from a biological drive, but because we would want to be treated that way. The best way of ensuring that is creating a society where that is the norm. Mankind decided that killing others is wrong because we don't want to get killed ourselves. If we think stealing from others is fine, we have no redress if someone steals from us.
When I was young, I noticed that the some of the Hammurabic Codes shared a lot in common with Christian teachings. I brought this up to my dad and he said "Yeah, where do you think Hammurabi got the idea?" Now, obviously, he's got his timeline confused, and even as a small child I could do that math and knew the royal edicts pre-dated the 10 commandments and are of a completely non-religious nature. Groups living together need fairness to prosper.
Evolution, however, tends to lean more towards the strongest surviving. Evolutionarily, we need our genes passed on. Sure, we might manage to procreate before we die, but then we're not around to protect that lineage. Lions are a good example of that problem. If a rival male takes over your pride after killing you, they will also kill all the cubs. Presumably so only their genes are the ones moving on. That is the evolutionary drive. Wolves, however, are much more social creatures. They function as a group that doesn't necessarily need to be related and they make decisions similar to how we would expect our own group behaviors. If one of the pack is hurt, they don't leave it behind to die, they protect it and even leave them behind with the pups to heal when they go out on hunts. But this only extends to their pack. Anything outside the pack does not get that consideration. It's only in groups where being grateful and kind is an advantage.
Sociology is still a science though! A very good reason to follow those precepts.
Oh man, and that other poster thought they were rambling... I get real wordy when the Adderall kicks in first thing in the morning.
I don't agree completely. Using lions as a comparison doesn't really work imo since their behavioural patterns differ greatly from ours.
Gratitude always served as the foundation of our communities. It's what motivates us to look out and care for one another and work as a group. Humans are herd animals so it has an evolutionary advantage to be kind to people. Being excluded from a community (which is the most common response to dicks) usually meant dying.
For people who didn't suffer that fate, it kind of went something like this: Your parents and other community members take care of you as a child (instinctively). You notice that and feel gratitude, motivating you to return the favor by doing something for other members of your community. They feel grateful as a response and also want to return the favor. Ideally, this loop continues.
It used to work way better, the Neolithic Revolution really fucked things up but it still works.
You make a lot of assumptions there though, don't you? You're assuming that you would be motivated to "return the favor," but where does that motivation come from? Humans reciprocal acts are learned traits. There's nothing they get in return for that act alone. The return only comes from the potential impact on the community, which is a social function, not biological.
I used lions as a contrast specifically because they're behavior is different. They are baser creatures who's community does come directly from biology and it's drastically different. I also also gave canines as an example because they are specifically social animals and those behaviors that are similar to ours are derived from the social aspect, not biological since it's community specific, not species.
Sociology studies how humans behave as groups in relation to each other. It's specifically about the things you're describing. Evolution drives us to pass our genes on. That's it. What you're saying can be just as easily used to trace literally everything humans do back to evolution. The argument could just as easily be made that religion is a result of evolution. Humans are curious because looking for answers gave us a cognitive advantage over competition. That trait leads us to searching for answers. If none are available, we find one. And now we have gods. But religion is organized and requires groups, which brings us back to sociology again.
I'm sorry for misunderstanding the thing with the lions. Thank you for helping me understand it, it makes much more sense now.
As I said, living in groups is desirable to humans on a very basic level. It's what makes us survive and allows us to pass along our genes which is why staying in groups gives humans an evolutionary advantage.
I also said that what I described is how it used to work most of the time until the Neolithic Revolution happened. This enormous change also changed the way humans interact and behave. Stuff like greed and jealousy became much more common.
Despite that it is still baked into human biology that kindness and gratitude are advantageous to us. It explains the positive emotions that emerge when being kind and grateful.
I am also not doubting what you're saying about sociology because how could I? It's not wrong.
I think that our opinions don't differ that greatly. The only point I am making is that behaving in a social manner is indeed evolutionary advantageous because it undeniably is.
Is what Wikipedia says about group living.
It would come from gratitude. Being grateful is simply a tool that emerged to motivate animals, including humans, to live in groups. The behaviour I mentioned earlier can also be seen in chimps and other primates, whose behavioral patterns are pretty similar to ours.
TL;DR
Living in groups does have evolutionary advantages thus staying part of one's group is desirable which makes social behavior necessary. However, the Neolithic Revolution messed with human behavior and today's society being much larger than human groups used to be thousands of years ago complicates things further. Gratefulness is simply a tool that emerged in many species, including humans, to further the goal of staying part of the group. It is still baked into human biology although not as much as it used to be.
Why?
I don’t know why your comment was downvoted when I got to it. It’s a perfectly valid question. To claim in incomprehensible being wouldn’t do any given thing is just as objectively baseless as claiming that they would do that thing.
I think the concept of such an entity being incomprehensible is baked into the idea of religion, or at least Christianity, which is the only religion that I have any actual experience with.
How can you be so sure this entity doesn’t look at every individual and each of their actions and make a judgement on them? The concept of omnipotence and omniscience are themselves incomprehensible to us.
The idea that we don’t know God’s motives is part of why people follow blindly, despite the pain and joy of existence
How do you know?
Sure, but does that mean the same being can't judge A as better than B? That it can't for example see one person pushing over old people, and another person helping them back up, and say "the person helping them back up is morally better than the person pushing them over"?
I think a grand being would definitely possess things like emotions or morality - some mechanisms of wisdom and good judgement. What I've always balked at is the idea that a grand being would have more ego-driven and self-serving human behaviours like jealousy, intolerance of people who are different, revenge, hatred, predudice, etc. Any idea of "God hates [fill in the blank]" has always been laughable to me. I think a grand being would definitely be morally superior to most humans
I enjoy blaspheming. (God dammit, Jesus fucking Christ, etc)
I try to pry it out of my lexicon but can't do it, especially when I'm mad which of course is most likely when I blaspheme.
Totally agree! "God" just has that ring to it. I haven't found a suitable replacement yet
One of my favourites is “Christ on a bike!” because it’s so hilarious.
I use Christ on a cracker. No clue if I heard it somewhere or if it just came out of my mouth one day.
"Jesus H Christ" always made me smirk not sure why. Like Christ was his last name or something.
I like “Jesus Christ on a pogo stick!”
"Jesus christ on a stick!"
Now that you say it, I think I do that too.
Christmas because I have good memories of it and I like the idea of a holiday that by and large, brings my extended family together. And I like buying or creating personalized gifts for those close to me and vice versa.
My ex's family was ethnically but not religiously jewish and they still did hannukah which was interesting and being included in that meant a lot to me.
edit, deleted the post, reply from the inbox or else it will throw an error at ya. I have 191 unread notifs and I don't want more, so deleted the post
I was going to say nothing, but based on other answers here, it seems Christmas is being held as religious. I personally feel all religious connotations have been thoroughly washed away from xmas over the years, and it's simply a holiday like any other now. I still love the lights and decorations it brings out, the whole family coming together, and the food.
The way I view religious holidays is, if it provides an excuse for feasting, drinking or fucking, then let's celebrate. I don't care that someone else believes that were feasting for Jesus hanging out or Ostara bringing us a bountiful harvest. I'm just here for the food.
As for other religions left overs, I would say that a lot of my core morals were originally taught to me as part of Christianity. While "thou shalt not kill" is pretty universal and is defensible outside the framework of religion, it it's where I originally was taught that.
And it wasn't Christian to begin with.
... Keep Yule in Yuletide Keep Saturn in Saturnalia ...
They appropriated August 15th too and who knows what else. The trinity reminds me of the Etruscan one. It's all a copypasta.
Your wrong. It's literally the Christ Mass, come on now. People don't put fucking mangers up all over the place for nothing.
Uhm historically speaking its yule... a whole week spent eating, drinking, celebrating and toasting to the departure of last year, and wellcoming the new
I still say "Oh my God"
I still say "bless you"
For someone that became an atheist twenty years ago, I have hypocritically requested that the Big Man damn hundreds of things nearly every day.
We need a good offhanded atheist curse to express frustration.
Other options: Shit!/Aw shit!- These work, but not in many professional spaces.
Jesus! Jesus Christ!- Getting biblical again, though this curse seems to make things fall off of the shelf more slowly, increasing your chance of catching them before they hit the ground.
Fuck me! /Fuck sakes!/ Fucker!- Effective, but nsfw.
Crap!- Works, but you sound like a middle aged soccer mom expressing her frustration.
Jeez/shoot/sheesh!- Go back to middle school, little one.
I NEVER said "oh my god" as a Christian as it was considered taking the lord's name in vain, so saying it now is my act of freedom and rebellion.
I recognize that Churches are often community centers and do a lot of good work
I wasn't raised very religious.
I do think some of the stuff from the Christian Bible would be great if people followed it.
Part of what makes the religious right in the US so infuriating is they spend so much time being mad about gay people and comparably no time on poverty.
Every mega church should be condemned as heretical and repurposed as housing or something for the needy.
I am religious now, but I always swore I'd never walk into a church after growing up in a very Roman Catholic area for exactly this reason. That was the only Christianity that I knew - hating on LGBTQ people, refusing women bodily autonomy, just general hypocrisy with the whole "love your neighbor" thing. Spent some time as a Zen Buddhist, but then felt the call to go to church, so I did some reading and found the Episcopal Church. Went once, got invited to chat by the priest and took him up on it during the week after my second Sunday. Straight-up told him that I'm a bisexual woman who values my rights to leave an abusive marriage and to choose what goes on with my body. His response blew me away: "I don't have a problem with any of that - and I don't think Jesus does either."
That was back in 2012. They'll get rid of me when they put me I the ground (after a requiem mass, of course). The love and care I've witnessed in this denomination just wasn't possible under the RCC teachings that I always saw as a kid. The more I go along, the more I'm convinced that you can't honestly be on the political right and truly follow the teachings of Jesus.
Sorry if this is a little rambly. It's 3:30 and I'm trying to stay awake while I feed my baby.
As someone that was raised in a religious right wing home and is now a moderate left atheist, I have a feeling it's because a lot of these people choose their beliefs first, political or otherwise, and then attempt to twist and interpret the Bible in any way they can to reduce the cognitive dissonance that occurs when you inevitably run into contradictory information between the teachings of Jesus and the reality of right wing politics.
Without a doubt, much to the detriment of them, us, and all of you. Best thing we can do is work across faith and non-faith lines to combat their seemingly-endless stream of bullshit
I hope it's not too late, but their propaganda and mental hoop jumping seems almost infinite.
Feeling guilty for existing.
*Jesus has entered the chat
I say “bless you” when somebody sneezes.
Same. Just out of courtesy.
In Norway I use either Prosit, or the German word Gesundheit, for that courtesy.
Same, it just feels more polite than 'fuck you'.
I say God Damn it when I'm mad.
The High Priests of the Egregore! The High Priests of the Egregore!
Yes that my local, now long deceased Priest didn't want my father to be buried at his graveyard, because he committed suicide and that is a sin. Made me a staunch atheist.
I really like churches, they are a good way to find a strong community. It can be really hard as an adult in a new area to meet people, and a church can basically solve that for you. I'm in a very religious area too where they desperately want me to go to one.
Also I've kind of understood "praying" now. I meditate a lot, and the goal to focus on your inner breath and be one with the present moment. Praying is kind of the opposite, instead of focusing on your inner self, you're focusing on something greater outside of you, like trying to connect your body to the universe. It's like trying to imagine you're part of something greater and it's kind of comforting.
100%! Cathedrals and Temples especially are some of the most amazing pieces of architecture. You can't walk in to a historic European cathedral with the ceiling reaching to the sky and stained glass windows and not feel something.
Both are meditation, vipassanā vs. jhāna, though that encompasses a flurry of potential objects/concepts/qualia of focus.
That sounds roughly like the fifth jhāna, infinite space. I just can't resist to comment here that our intelligence, mammal intelligence in general, is largely based on repurposed/expanded spatial awareness circuitry. That we use terms like "mind map" is anything but coincidental.
Is that why we are able to visualize? Or at least most of us?
Kinda... yes and no? Visualisations aren't necessarily spatial, as in representing a map of a space. Random example I get a different erm quality for the qualia for "fish tank" and "interaction of fishes in a tank", only the latter has that space-like quality the other is a mere image representation of an idea. It cannot have, as a singular object there's nothing to set it in relation to.
But back to practice: Close your eyes, and consider where you are. You're probably still "seeing" the room around you in your mind's eye, and could navigate to, say, the door reasonably accurately (and the inaccuracy is due to lack of practice, blind folks excel at that kind of stuff). Navigation through terrain you're not directly seeing (whether that be because of closed eyes or a forest obscuring it) is the original function of the circuitry and other uses of it have a similar quality to it.
What is almost certain is that that circuitry is the reason why we have a very hard time visualising anything higher-dimensional than 3d space: It's just not in its feature set because little warm-blooded critters living alongside dinosaurs had no use for it.
I think there is a lot of beautiful wisdom in the bible that sticks with me, but usually it only comes out when I (way more often that I'd like) hear someone who claims to be Christian acting in a way that is completely antithetical to what is in the bible.
Hundreds of years ago, Christianity inspired some truly incredible music. Bach's BWV 63 (especially the Gardiner recording) is a miracle.
Contemporary Christian music, though, is probably the falling domino that ultimately led to the realization that my Christianity was just tribalism. Modern American Christian "culture" has no redeeming value, other than its lucrative redemption for fiat currency.
I do love visiting cathedrals, though.
I'd say monogamy, but that isn't strictly religious. Sex outside of relationships ig (ik it's not marriage but still).
Exmormon here, going on 20 years now. Don't miss pretty much anything from it except some of the music. Ignore the Republican-looking motherfuckers here and enjoy this: https://youtu.be/WwYm_mKQ3Gs
For me it's funeral potatoes, or half the desert dishes from various potlucks that would happen in the chapel gym.
Jokes on them though, all those recipes are posted online now! Don't need a temple recommend for that shit lol.
For a moment I was worried that "funeral potatoes" was some euphemism for something there that I couldn't identify
You may be thinking of soaking.
Only true friends will jump-hump for you.
What's that?
Be very, very still.
Just seeing urban dictionary in the link makes me worry
Edit: Welp, I actually recognize this. And now this will stay in my mind in a funeral-potatoes-context
Yeah, even though I went on a mission and have tons of family from Utah/AZ/Nevada/Cali, I'm on the East Coast so a lot of LDS culture like that didn't sink in. I would honestly probably participate in ex-mo stuff more if I had to deal with it on a daily basis, but I'm fine mostly pretending it doesn't exist!
The Osmonds were Mormons weren't they, which I guess makes this banger a Mormon choon:
https://youtu.be/iXcj8dFOd1E?feature=shared
Yep! Imagine Dragons is also kind of Mormon, but has very much butt heads with the church on their LGBTQ stance.
Oh, hie, Kolob!
KLOLob!
I’m atheist and my parents raised me without any religion. The first time I learned anything about religion was at primary school where Christianity was taught as fact. I was really confused as to why I hadn’t heard of this “god” fellow before now, and I asked my parents about it, and they explained the general concept of religious belief to me, and said that I was free to believe whatever I choose, and I remember being frustrated that my mum wouldn’t directly answer me as to whether or not this stuff was real or not real, and kind of just settled on the idea that it was like they read the Chronicles of Narnia and believed Aslan was real, which was like, fine with me, but seemed a little silly. It was kind of funny to learn a bunch of religious stuff in retrospect - it was kind of like, “dang, this Jesus dude really does force himself into everything doesn’t he?” Easter is the funniest one, it’s such a stretch, they clearly had no idea how to make that one about Christianity and just kinda phoned it in.
So, the one “religious” thing I keep, is saying stuff like “oh my god”, “for god’s sake” and stuff like that, but for me, it doesn’t really mean anything to do with god. It’s just like an otherwise meaningless idiom that people say.
Funny that your parents used Chronicles of Narnia as an example since it is literally an Christian allegory and Aslan is Jesus.
I don’t think it’s as clear cut as to call it allegory, it’s definitely inspired though - and Aslan certainly is particularly like the holy trinity for sure.
I also only need "god" and especially "Jesus Christ" to avoid cursing when my kids go bonkers. To consider it an idiom exactly meets my view of it.
"Jesus Christ" is just a fun expression, whether it's yelling it while hitting your finger while hammering in a nail or under your breath watching your friend feed his lane opponent in League of Legends.
I also consider it an idiom. Funnily enough, in Christian mythology, one of the "Commandments", rules to follow, is to not use god's name in vain. And then christians use the phrases like for gods sake, oh my god, etc, more than anyone else. Quite ironic, to be honest, and quite silly from my perspective.
They justify it as "God isn't a name. It's a job title." Christians have pretty much forgotten the name of their god so they don't use it in vain. Judaism and Islam still have the name Jehovah, Yahweh and Allah in use, all references to the same god.
Pretty fucked-up that your parents sent you to a religious school, and then didn't even prepare you! Glad you made it out okay.
I’m from Scotland, and when I was a kid, it was assumed that everyone was Christian. It was extremely uncommon to be raised atheist - all of my friends have Christian parents, pretty much, and every school was a religious school. It wasn’t too hardcore or anything. We had lots of religious lessons in class, the school got together twice a week to pray, read bible stories and sing hymns, and we recited the Lord’s Prayer before lunch each day. I wasn't really interested in any of it but also I didn’t make a scene or ask to sit out or anything, and we were never forced to read from the bible or anything like that. I have read the bible, out of personal interest, but it was never expected from me.
High school was a bit similar but not as much - we had the school chaplain (priest who partnered with the school) show up once a fortnight (every 2 weeks) to deliver a sermon or religious lesson or whatever, and they were always good for a laugh. My favourite lesson of his was about how text speak (this was before smartphones, so we all typed on the 9-digit phone keypads stuff like “hey hru will u b going 2 skl 2mro” meaning “hey, how are you? Will you be going to school tomorrow?” was common) could be used with God as well - we could say “hf” to mean “Heavenly Father” and lol could mean “lots of love”. We got a kick out of that for a few weeks sending eachother ironic texts that we had meant to send to god but got the wrong number.
Wait, what was I talking about again?
I'd say I'm agnostic, but my parents also didn't force religion on me, my dad is Catholic, and my mom is Thai Buddhist, and I view the Buddhist ideology to strive for being satisfied without material as an honorable goal. I feel as if I believe that attaining that mindset really is nirvana, and I don't think you need to be particularly religious to think that's possible.
do atheists give you slack for being agnostic? I have seen many memes on the internet bashing agnostics (quite funny tbh), so asking
The Imperial Japanese ruined Buddhism for me.
One of the perks of being agnostic is that you don't have to tell people you're agnostic. When others ask me about my religion, I just shrug and say I was raised Christian but I'm not really religious anymore. I don't mention that I'm agnostic unless they pry and ask more questions.
To be honest, after high school it just either doesn't seem like most people I know my age are very religious at all either way, or otherwise it doesn't come up.
I haven't had anyone give me shit for it, personally, I don't take offense to online meme bashing, everybody gets it
I find that to be really odd behavior tbh. One of the issues with organized religion is when a group shuns or hates on someone for their religious/ spiritual views. That's also something that can happen with atheism, even if it's not really seen as a "religion".
Just be accepting of other people
Off topic: I'm old & out of the loop. Is this a new meaning for "give slack"? It seems opposite of what my understanding. To me it means giving leeway, or latitude, or freedom. To give someone slack was to give some freedom or forgiveness. A metaphor of lengthening a dog's leash.
I'm not sure if slack has a new meaning, but it might be one of those misspellings where the person really means "flack"
"To give flack" fits the context here
You're not alone, that's what giving or cutting someone some slack means to me as well. I hadn't considered that maybe this was a sign of me aging.
I celebrate Christmas for my children so they don't miss out. Does that count? I'm also very routine. I do the same thing the same way, every day. That might tie in to rituals? Hell if I know.
Rituals don't have to be religious or related to religion. Daily regular, repeating activities are rituals - even without any link to a religion.
Does your Christmas have a direct relation to Christianity? It can be celebrated as a social and societal construct, possibly with imagery and rituals, with or without actual intention and relation to the religion.
Personally, I don't think I've ever experienced Christmas as a celebration of god and Christ in the direct and factual sense. Thinking back, we had the stories of birth and my mother even tried some singing with us. I don't think I've ever taken the stories for fact though. It's a setting, a story, a celebratory setup. (But I wonder if that may be back-looking reinterpretation with a changed mindset. It certainly wasn't something that stuck over time and after early childhood.)
That's pretty much why these traditions are there, just like people don't actually believe in Santa similarly you don't have to believe in Jesus to enjoy a winter holiday/break and excuse to see friends and family
Christmas was a Roman holiday called Saturnalia before the Christians reappropriated it.
I don't place any relious meaning on Christmas, but I celebrate it because humans have been celebrating roughly the same event at roughly the same time every year for over 2000 years.
Catholic guilt. My parents were atheists when they had me, but still instilled guilt in me so hard it hurts to this day.
How? Did they send you to Catholic school and/or convert to Catholicism after they had you?
This seem to work on an assumption that people have a religion before becoming athiest/agnostic. I never did. My birth certificate says Church of England as that's the default here unless your parents ask for something else. However they never took me to church or raised me in a religious manner, I had an entirely secular upbringing so there's no elements of Religon to hang onto.
Christmas for sure because it's fun and there's good food and smells and all kinds of stuff. Beyond that, no not really.
I slowly begin to rename it to winter solstice. Also makes it easier to incorporate the red clothed dude and stuff. Despite he doesn't make sense in any constellation, but the kids live it the weird way it is.
Christmas isn't in the winter solstice though...
It's pretty close (Usually Dec 20 or 21), and some versions of the holidays that were merged together to form today's Christmas were indeed celebrated on the solstice.
It is close (pretty sure it's 22nd), but I'm not sure there's evidence that co-opting a pagan festival is what happened. It is a common assertion though.
I don't need evidence, out just moves the the Christmas in the way we celebrate it and that hasn't much left of the Christian Christmas away from the Christianity, but towards something I really appreciate: days getting longer again.
Sup, Ganesh! I’m HandOfDumb :) This is a neat question you’ve asked and I’m stoked to see more answers.
I was raised in Catholicism, though my family has, largely, stopped following that specific religion so closely (though many are still religious). I don’t follow any specific religion and am unsure what I consider myself - atheist fits well enough!
Somethings that stick for me are many of the kindnesses that live within bible stories. There’s a lot of good stuff in there, of course! And most of (what I consider to be) the good stuff is along the lines of being a good person. But some of it is kinda off-beat.
Like, there’s a bit in there about a proclamation that people should forgive debts after some seemingly arbitrary amount of time (seven years?) and that really jibed with me. Not the time part, but just forgiving pals/family you might have loaned money to. If I spot a friend $5 for something, I’m not going to hold it against them and ask them to repay. If they do repay? Great! But I will never expect it and I will not be offended if they do not.
Similarly with larger sums. If I’m okay to loan it to someone, I’m okay to lose it.
Anyhoo, I think it’s awesome that you like cows :) they remind me of big ol’ dogs and I like them very much. They can teach us more than they can fill our bellies, I think!
This is probably slightly tangential, but after leaving a very dogmatic, Christian upbringing, I dabbled in the New Atheist Thing but have since come to realize religion and belief is on a two dimensional axes.
On the first axis, you have dogma, or a core set of beliefs or religious doctrine. High or low dogma. Your classic fundamentalists of any stripe are over here. Evangelical Christians, fundamentalist Islam. And yes even some strains of atheism can be relatively high dogma. On the lower end of the dogma scale you have agnostics, many atheists, some types of new age spirituality, and even some types of organized religion like Unitarianism or Buddhism.
On the second axis is humanism, or the relishing and participation in people, culture and acceptance of people or ideas that do not conform to the doctrine. High on the humanism scale would be literal secular humanists, and other faiths that prioritize people more than dogma.
Eventually, someone raised in a high dogma/low humanism religion might eventually learn there are some faiths that are relatively high humanism, even with a low or relatively high dogma score.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
It sounds like you don't understand what atheist or agnostic actually mean.
Yes an atheist believes there is basically no evidence there is a God while an agnostic believes it's an unknowable or unanswerable questions.
The issue is if an atheist adheres to some dogma (eg all religious people are bad and dogmatic, people who don't read the same books are ignorant) then it becomes a relatively high dogmatic belief system, for that person.
@Subject6051
My family put us to the church as kids as little as needed to prove that they exposed us to it. I thank them for that minimal exposure because I've always felt agnostic (of course, that was verbalized as atheism as a kid). My mom was raised German christian, my dad was raised Quaker.
I think that the most meaningful lessons I learned about religion were from my father (who never once mentioned god, Jesus or the church).
My father's religion was one of acceptance of all others, refusal of indoctrination to any structured religion and an absolute knowledge that men (and women) make their faith and their covenant to each other, not to a church. Thanks, dad!
I hope not
I went to old school, pre second Vatican council Latin masses. On our knees on other days in dusty, stone walled rooms, heads down, everyone quietly counting rosary beads. Had to wear veil over head to enter church because women's bare heads weren't fit for the eyes of god. Large cathedrals, Latin chanting bouncing echoes off walls. Hunky jesus nailed to cross behind gaudy altar, his loincloth sculpted so teasingly low.
No longer believe in god, but damn, the theatrical pomp was next class, probably influenced work I do as an artist, and why I like bdsm so much.
I'm not saying that every BDSM partner I've been with has been a former Catholic, but I will say that every former Catholic I've been with has been into BDSM....
Sometimes I listen to Gregorian chants.
About cows - there was a YTer who sucessfully connected atheism to veganism (but then didn't). I think veganism and atheism have a lot in common structurally.
Would you mind translating that into laypeople's language?
Biblical wisdom mostly. Certain parts definitely don't hold up to modern morality, but there is a lot well-thought-out advice buried in it that has helped people in Judeo-Christian areas for thousands of years.
One of the Proverbs in particular comes to mind: "He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." Hard to argue against the inherent wisdom in such a statement.
Also, like you, I have an appreciation for old churches and some religious art.
Same. I particularly love those. Matthew is a bop:
Matthew 26: 52
and similarly
Matthew 7:1-2
Matthew 5:27-29 - Adultery in the Heart
Word by word: It doesn't matter what women wear, if you can't restrain yourself then take your eye out.
Matthew 9:12
The way I talk to monks. In Theravada buddhism, monks are treated as a class above average humans. We had to special wording when speaking with them to be reverent, kind of like when speaking with nobles, royals and whatnot in Europe.
Still awkwardly doing that around most monks when I'm with my family, just out of respect for them. There are a few close monk friends that I can talk to normally though.
It's relatively common for people to just spend a few years as a monk, right?
I reckon itd be weird if one day I'm picking on my little brother, then the next I feel obliged to treat him as royalty, then a couple years later I get to noogie him again.
Not years. An average person might spend a few days or weeks as a monk every few years, to sort of cleanse their Karma so to speak.
My brother just decided to be a monk for life though. It's quite rare that people become monks for life though, especially someone as young as him. A Theravada buddhist monk's life is more restricted than those of Mahayana traditions like in China, Japan, Korea, etc.
Not really. I try very hard not to let myself fall prey to so-called "cultural religion." I don't celebrate any religious holidays like Christmas. I try to be as aware as possible of the religious influences in my daily life and avoid them. It's not easy, though! Religion has infested so many facets of every culture, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate.
Western culture is (as is every other culture) indeed infused with religion. There are lots of good things that come from it. Are we to throw them away because they are "tainted" by some religious element in their origin or development?
We've ended up in a very culturally poor place because in moving away from religion we throw so much out. Babies with bath water, as it were.
We've moved to a rationalist mentality without a good understanding of how man is an inherently cultural animal. And culture until recently was very hard to separate from religious aspects.
Note that I am an atheist myself, not brought up religious, and I don't have answers to how to resolve this awkward place we have gotten to. But I'm quite sure that avoiding cultural elements simply because there is a religious taint is not helpful. Are we to throw away all of Bach's music?
I would never suggest doing away with Bach's or any other sacred music or art. They can and should be appreciated in their proper historical context.
I don't think it's at all fair to say we have ended up in a "culturally poor" place. People are still producing all kinds of cultural contributions without religion. If anything, it is capitalism that has commodified culture causing some of the decline we see today.
I agree that capitalism is a big part of the decline. And I am not saying we need to embrace religion to embrace culture, or that lack of religion is the cause of a decline in culture. I am saying that all our cultural heritage, tends to have influences from religion, and that this is not a reason to reject it. You don't have to take the religious elements, just don't throw out the whole thing because a cultural aspect of a practice or an artifact has elements in its history you find unsavory.
Enjoy the music of Bach and you don't even need to care about the "proper historical context." Enjoy Christmas and ignore the Christian elements, if you like, or view then as a quaint part of its rich history (as Christians did the pagan elements). All cultural threads have always changed throughout history as people have adapted them to their current worldviews and needs. Hand-wringing about historical accuracy and taints from aspects of history we don't like is a modern disease.
As to being in a culturally poor place, the difficulty with that discussion is that the word "culture" covers a lot of ground. We are rich with certain types of culture (yes all the kinds that can be sold to us). We are poor in other kinds, particularly kinds that build community. Capitalism favors the short term, the trend of the day, and that which divides us into manipulatable markets.
I was raised entirely non-religiously, but I still still celebrate "cultural Christmas" since that's what we do in the UK. I don't go to midnight mass or watch Songs of Praise, but putting up the tree and having a big roast dinner is good times.
Music, especially singing in groups. Once I shrugged off the religious trappings associated with music, it turns out there are very many wonderful songs that have nothing to do with God. The feeling of oneness transcends religion, and is a human experience that we all need to feel once in a while.
I've always felt the serenity prayer was good life advice.
Yes, yes it is.
I don't buy into all the soul mumbo-jumbo, but it makes for good stories. Also, the Catholics made some good music back in the day.
Yeah, about that...
Catholics used to castrate the choir boys so their voices wouldn't change.
yeah, they needed a high voice and they didn't know about Helium back then.
I'm sorry, I hope you're being sarcastic.
Are you not aware of the extensive history the Catholic Church has of molesting and abusing children?
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/1012100926/graves-found-at-new-site-canadian-indigenous-group-says
I could look up a thousand articles and still probably wouldn't scratch the surface.
Can we discuss atheism without turning every thread into a rehashing of Religions' Atrocities.
It’s not just history, ask the current pope. He knew and protected molesters. And gets away with it.
damn, yes another thing I like is the religious music too. I have heard Richard Dawkins say he likes the bible for it's old English poems etc.
not only of Hindus but muslims have some nice songs as well. My muslim friend was laughing after I was humming a quite nice muslim prayer song (Hindi), long ago, but that moment was quite funny.
Personally, I was raised muslim, but now I don't eat pork (or meat in general) for ethical/environmental reasons rather than religious.
Not 100% sure this answers the question, but here goes.
Closest I can say that stuck with me, as someone born in a Christian household would be the original Veggietales and how some of the messages have stuck with me. You take away the Christian aspect from some of the messages and you get messages that I think could still apply to a general audience.
Small people can do big things (Dave and the Giant Pickle)
Despite your differences, you can still be friendly with others (Are You My Neighbor)
You should forgive others (God Wants Me To Forgive Them!?!)
I may not follow them to a tee but I am at least somewhat trying.
Ye. There aren't people who believe you can't be moral without being religious (christian) for nothing. Christianity has actually a lot of good messages.
If you like to talk to tomatoes...
I'm just wondering if souls exist. I hope they doesn't.
that's pretty pessimistic don't you think? Are you scared of eternal life? (I kinda am)
I'm scared of reincarnation. I don't want to live a second life no matter how good it would be.
I wouldn't want to be reincarnated to earth, but reincarnated to a fantasy world with magic might be nice to try out. My biggest hangup with reincarnation is not bringing the wisdom of hard learned lessons with.
I also would wish that, if I had confidence that I could do something useful with it.
many people come back from near death experiences with insight about the whole structure of the universe. one common theme they report is that we all chose the lives we're living because these lives offered the best opportunity to learn and grow. they say we come back many times until we learn everything we need to.
so, if true, the downside is that you and I will probably be back. but, the upside is that we won't keep coming back forever and that we can curtail the number of times we will return by being the best people we can and by learning as much as we can.
Then I can assure you, I've learned nothing. If all of this is true, then I've chosen this life, because there MAY be good opportunities, but I'm lacking knowledge and courage to achieve them. Nevertheless, this is a failure.
The Belgian minister of Justice (Koen Geens, Christian party) wrote a column about Christianity, where he nicely summed up what it means to be a good Christian:
Try to align every decision and action with your system of morality, and be consistent in this.
Even as an atheïst/humanitarian, this is a constant struggle. It nicely sums up how we need to weigh our options and consciously try to do the right thing. To me, it was a profound observation.
That just means being a moral person, being a good ------ian requires a whole set of things to be believed as well.
Typically, the ------ian asserts that only they are capable of having a conscience.
This weird irrational fear when I'm reading religious texts, or hearing religious songs that I may go back or something.
Like I know rationally that that will never happen, but for some reason a part of me is afraid if I listen to to much of it I will fall back into it or something.
It almost feels how "sinning" used to feel when I was religious. Like an irrational fear of doing something "bad".
I used to be deeply religious, I even got tattoos.
Haven't covered them up because the symbology is pertinent.
Listen to some religious music, I like some classical Christian music.
"Good must prevail even if you suffer directly for it."
In every day life, this is voting for parties that would increase my taxes but provide benefits for a greater number of people. Giving to charity, supporting the creators I like directly (as much as possible, Patreon still takes their cut). Using FOSS/privacy based software instead of the mainstream data syphons. Encouraging repair instead of replace, doing car maintenance for friends.
I was raised in a Buddhist family and we all celebrate christmas til this day. Just the part with the tree and the gifts, none of the other religious stuff that comes with Christmas.
Christmas is largely a pagan tradition that was turned into a christian tradition to make it easier to convert them to christianity.
The christmas tree is not a christian tradition. Santa is not a christian tradition. Nothing really is, except for Jesus allegedly being born on the exact date when the pagans celebrated "Jolablot" or the midwinter fest.
Or Saturnalia, or any other holiday that was around the winter solstice.
That's the best part of Christmas, anyway. Food and family, and free shit.
No.
I love this answer.
Atheism is not a religion. We don't fight or argue with religious people since we don't care. We don't bring up atheism with other people as a topic to discuss since we simply don't care.
I am not sure if this is the right comparison, but we don't really care if the earthworm feels that it wants to take a shit. Or what it feels for a worm when taking a shit. I simply don't care. Same about the religions.
I am a non-theist Norse pagan and have been a Norse pagan since I was single digits in age. I was raised by a Catholic mother (her mother was Irish Catholic and her father was Roman Catholic), my father's mother was a Mennonite. I was not raised religiously, but i still have Catholic guilt, and use religious curses.
Proper gospel music.
Man, IF I could over play like that, I can't imagine getting to the point where I could listen to a guy talking to me and interact with him, laughing and joking, while still playing.
Talent.
Dude even laughs in key.
Fellow Indian here. I'm agnostic. I wasn't raised very religious either. I am ok with eating beef and have tried it a few times. My main thing is that I sometimes do a token prayer when I pass a temple. I also feel icky if my feet touch books.
we can't even touch it with our feet. Same goes for our elders (or any human), I can't even chill with my dog massage with my feet and play and etc, and my parents won't approve.
same dude! I mean, I feel like that's one thing we can keep. Respecting knowledge! It's a...
I was born in a Hindu family, i don't believe in God but i really like and keep deities statues and pictures as Art. I also read religious text bcz i found there are lots of good things which can be learned from it and i am also fascinated about how old these scriptures are and still tells about lots of good things about human mind, life and society.
Greetings from an Ex-Hindu Atheist. I was never really into Religious Banter that much even as a small kid. But I would say the major propelling force that made me become an Atheist would be my curiosity and eagerness to study science. Science answered all those questions Religion could not and my treatment by my super religious parents helped me not to retain any religious superstitions. Their berating only gave me more strength to continue my study of science and legitimized my standings.
That's interesting because I only became a vegan long after I became an atheist and I think if it happened the other way around there wouldn't have been such a delay seeing as so many Catholic religious feasts in my culture have an entire roasted animal as a centerpiece. That would have definitely forced me to confront my religion. It's weird too because we are taught that we are stewards of animals and to take advantage of them in such ways seems contradictory to the faith.
Something that has stuck with me though is religious music, especially the stuff with darker vibes. Music targeted at a religious demographic with religious messaging like Christian rock is not what I'm taking about, just the classics that we used to sing in church and choir. I also enjoy religious precessions, I don't see them as cultish rituals as I think a lot of atheists do. There is something meditative about processes like the giving and receiving of communion.
Still love me some good Gospel music.
I like a lot of religious art (architecture, paintings, music...). Some of it is certainly the result of historical patronage, but plenty is the result of genuine religious inspiration and even ecstasy. I often think that art is the only real redeeming quality of religion!
I still cross my fingers for luck.
I didn't know that was religious?
Supposedly, it invokes the Christian symbol of the cross.
Oh fascinating. Never thought twice about it.
I never thought even once about it!
Although wikipedia has that as the origin several other internet sources suggested a pagan pre christian origin
https://www.readersdigest.com.au/culture/fascinating-origins-of-everyday-hand-gestures
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/55702/why-do-we-cross-our-fingers-good-luck
https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/why-do-we-cross-our-fingers-for-luck/p06j436j
Noting that these are not proper sources although mental floss links to a text that may be reliable
*Jesus does not approve of this
I am vegetarian because I cannot see meat as anything other than a dead animal. I respect the view points of non vegetarians, but I cannot accept it for myself.
Also, I love Sufi music, even if it mostly praises god. Also, I love visiting old temples.
I'm agnostic but Amy Grant's christmas music was a staple from my childhood and that still holds up quite well. Also some Jon Bellion songs, while I'm on the topic of music.
I still use common colloquialisms without paying much mind to them. "thank God, oh my god, Jesus christ" etc. Kinda hard to get rid of those, but it's no biggie, really.
What I will say, is that while I do identify as an atheist in the sense of not believing in established religions or cults, I do consider that I am able to believe in more than what reality presents. I've always said I'm an agnostic atheist, but as of late, I've been feeling like it's rather OK and even necessary to wonder about reality and existence a lot more than what science allows itself to. For example, if you take even a moment to ponder about what physics and the quantum realm means about reality, you'll feel like something else is definitely going on, like we're obviously not seeing the full picture and there's a good chance we never will, and that the picture were missing is unparalleled in its majesty. To just think that we seem to be just a combination of countless fields fluctuating together to form reality, but at the end of the day you could just say we're the expression of different waves going through different mediums juxtaposed on each other. A combination of planes crashing in on each other in a multidimensional membrane, a universe that could be just one possibility out of a mostly dead multiverse, where even our universe seems to be mostly dead, yet here we stand. It's hard to wrap your mind around it, or even begin to grasp it all. Definitely makes you feel like there's more to it than just chance, hell, chance sounds like an implausible explanation for all of this.
I think I mostly take issue with "matter of fact" stances, where people will claim things are a specific way because their faith or textbook says so. No. Just, experience life, question it, question your beliefs, but also question life itself, don't settle for just "big bang and chance and meaninglessness" as science is just a tool, don't settle for just "God willed it all and demands these things of us", we're not here for that long, let's ponder on it all while we can, and enjoy the life that were lucky (or unlucky) to be able to experience for one moment in eternity of nothingness, or an eternity of eternities of different existences. Who knows what were doing here, where we go from here, where do we come from? It's ok to acknowledge that the answer to those questions is "nobody on this earth knows, and maybe we'll never know". Let's cope together, let's smile together, let's live and ponder together.
I wasn't really raised into religion - my mom was a believer (Honestly not sure if she still is, I've picked up hints that may have changed), but she never once went to or brought me to church, we never talked about religion, etc. I think she got enough of that stuff when she was a kid.
I do like to go all-out on decorating for Christmas - just last year I spent a whole lot of time setting up and coding my own tree full of individually addressable RGB LEDs, in addition to all the other decorating on the interior of the place.
Despite that I still love saying "Happy Holidays" to anyone who gets bothered by that phrase. 😁
Every December I start practicing classical guitar arrangements of Christmas music, just like I always have.
I have had some seriously bizarre cases of deja vu. Like, recalling dreams I had years before that exactly predicted a place I would be in in the future. It has happened five or six times. It does make me question things such as consciousness and my place in the universe. It also makes me wonder if my brain is broken.
Yeah, I think there are mundane answers to this. But "mundane" in this case could include cosmological factors like the universe is a weird temporal foam of timeywimey stuff.
I've heard two theories for this that I think are plausible:
A feeling of familiarity even though this is a brand new situation. Your brain is always trying to determine the best course of action from experiences where you've encountered that problem before. Sometimes we have a false positive where the situation is so similar you "remember it", but it's obviously slightly different and new.
Essentially a memory read/write error. Your brain is recollecting as it's consolidating the memory causing wonkiness (technical term) in your experience. You think you remember, but what you're remembering is actually the present experience.
Or you do remember, it's just very very very recent. The present moment is rather funky when it comes to perception (it's not an instant but more of a sliding window in time) and it's reasonable that things can feel like remembering precisely when you see something because whatever lag there is in "write to memory, read from memory" still fits into that sliding window.
Yeah choosing to abstain from eating certain animals for moral reasons (dogs/cats/cows/horses) and not others (pigs/chickens/fish) is definitely weird. Though the majority of people in western society fall into this category, you just moved one more animal across the boundary due to normalization. If you were brought up with pigs, chickens, and fish you'd probably abstain from those too.
The real question to ask though is despite normalization, what's actually the right thing to do? Is it actually okay that some people eat dogs, cats, and cows? Or is it wrong to do this?
People should put more effort into reconciling this dissonance, because slaughter and oppression is not a matter we should leave up to the normalization of society to decide. Society has countless times normalized immoral things.
This absolutely. Rather than think it strange that you don't eat cows, you should think it strange that you eat any sentient being at all. If something feels pain and runs away, it's a strong sign that we should not use and abuse them, especially when our needs can be met without doing so.
Constantly behaving as if I am being judged if I ever do anything immoral, the main difference being that I follow my own morality based on a decent functional understanding of modern ethics.
I'm atheist, but until my last breath I will say "It's all a joke, send me down."
The idea of an after life. I like the idea of seeing pets and people I love again. But do I stricky believe that? No. I look at it as a vague inconsiquential thought that brings comfort. It doesn't change how I live my life or my atheist beliefs.
I was born and raised atheist/agnostic, never set foot in a church before 18 besides weddings. Still am, never doubted it. Maybe I believe in like Spinoza's god or something but definitely no Abrahamic God.
Something I've learned is that among many other things, a certain holy quality to persecution has definitely permeated the western consciousness and it 100% has me second guessing myself often. The christliness of being persecuted, made a martyr, and suffering for your cause carries a moral quality that I have absolutely not freed myself from, even though there's nothing automatically morally good or bad in suffering and being made a victim for fighting for a cause.
The basis of that isn’t Christianity, it is morality that existed before Christianity which Christianity adopted. Nietzsche referred to it as “slave morality” - the idea is that by redefining the behaviours of subjugated people as virtuous rather than compelled, it gives them power and agency
You might be right, but regardless of the origin, the belief was popularized in the West because of Christianity. Unless you're suggesting that Nietzsche is merely pointing out an intrinsic feature of all human morality, but I don't know his work well enough to decide either way on that.
It’s a bit like saying that Easter is a Christian holiday, when everyone knows it’s a rebranded general fertility-themed holiday. Christianity didn’t really popularise the morality, they just made it about them.
Not a goddamn thing. If I needed religion to tell me how to live, I'd be completely amoral and depraved. I simply treat others as I wish to be treated and live life trying not to negatively impact anyone else.
That's because you didn't tried good quality dry aged steak.
Dried beef is gooooood ♥️♥️♥️🥩🐄🐮🤠