Hey, so I believe in a higher power but I’m not on board with any particular religion. Anyone else think it’s cool to just fly solo as a good human, no religion attached?
What you are describing sounds like Deism, which is a philosophy that most of the framers of the US Constitution shared
Sounds kinda like deists. Most of the founding fathers were, plus a lot of enlightenment thinkers. So you’re in good company.
There is no reason why anyone has to make the same mistakes I made. There is no god. Just skip to the last step and save yourself so much agony.
I very much doubt you’ll find anyone here who discourages you from stepping away from organized religion.
I’m a former Christian pastor on a hiatus from church life, but in no way done with being a Christian in my private life.
I believe the Bible boils religion down to three basic life roles for every individual person to follow: priest, steward, and keeper.
- As a priest, every person is meant to determine how they ought best to live.
- As steward they are to take care of the world around them in accordance with their beliefs.
- As their “brother’s keeper” they should work to ensure everyone else is free from coercion to believe and live how they think is best.
When people function in all three roles they are revealing the “image of God”.
Live your best life and help others do the same to the best of your ability. Or, as James the brother of Jesus, said, true religion is this: “to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
I was raised in a very religious family. It’s very hard to break free but I have decided to go on my own path.
I trust you’ll find it a healing process. Most importantly, be patient with yourself.
What do you mean by healing process?
According to my perspective, having autonomy is core to being human and most religious structures actively work to squash autonomy and force conformity. I think that is harmful for everyone.
For me, it’s taken time to even recognize how hurt I was and I’m still going through a healing process.
I wish you well
I don’t see anything wrong with having faith in a higher power. Plenty of higher powers exist. Like the sun, quasars, super massive black holes, etc.
I’m an evangelist’s kid. I grew up surrounded by religion. When I got to my 30s I started reevaluating matters of faith. Now in my 60s I consider that journey complete. On “good” days I’m agnostic, on “bad” days an atheist.
I know many awesome people of faith. I know many hideous people of faith. I know many awesome nonbelievers, I know meant hideous nonbelievers.
Be a decent human being and very few people will care what you believe.
Whatever floats your boat, mate. Having a religion is not a bad thing per se. It’s only bad if you try to use it to control other peoples’ lives.
Thanks mate! I’ve been studying Islam, Christianity (my family is religious but tolerates different beliefs, so I have a mix of both worlds), as well as Buddhism. However, none of these religions really grabbed my attention.
Metaphysics is a blind man in a dark room, looking for a black cat that isn’t there. Religion is the blind man shouting “I found it!”
I grew up as a Lutheran Christian in a small, conservative town—and attended Sunday School/summer Bible camp for many years—but became an agnostic after I began questioning things at 16 years old. About a month after that, I became an atheist. I’ve been one since… so almost 14 years.
Unfortunately, I was afraid to tell my parents, so I still went to church with my family almost every Sunday until I left at 18. I was also still effectively forced to be anacolyte/perform piano/sing in the choir/attend most other church activities. Fucking painful.
I still haven’t told my parents, though, and probably never will; it’d cause more pain than anything else, sadly.
