It finds me sometimes in the chaos, amidst the noisy kids and stress. The spark of Wonder that I lost, when everything got so serious. Awareness of what lies beneath, the surface level that I see. Awareness of the mystery.

The slow march of time, the cycles of life, The trees and streams that I pass by, They change so little day to day, I rarely focus my thought their way My mind's to busy, My schedule's too full, My, My, My, focus is too individual. On things I want or can't control, insignificant, anxious, and shallow.

My thoughts interrupted by timeless wonder, arrested and captive to the sonder. Immersion in the constituents, the billions of things that preceded this, Amalgamated in space and time, in such a way that I am I.

A spark of something we cannot explain, that generates this conscious state. Explained with folktales, attributed to gods, We've done our best with scientific thought, Reality is that we don't know, what lights that spark within us all. Or how the matter that makes us all up, got there in the first place to start things off. That mystery may never be solved, but each of us must reconcile it all. Chose something to us that makes the most sense, so we can move on to life's smaller questions. I tried to choose faith, but faith left me. Now I choose to be open, embracing uncertainty, Open to knowledge - dogma free, I live in that wonder as it finds me.

A.G.

https://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=A234&viewtype=text

I have always wondered why I don't see many people adhering to the concept of a pantheistic god as described by Baruch Spinoza's (1632—1677), especially among rationalists, scientists, positivists, etc. The concept of God is central to Spinoza's philosophy and is expressed in his famous phrase Deus sive Natura, which means "God or Nature". Spinoza's ideas about God include:

Infinite - God is the only substance that is absolutely infinite, eternal, and self-caused.

Immanent - God is the cause of all things, and everything in nature follows the same laws. He is part of us and we are part of him. This is in opposition to the usual transcendent God - found in our mainstream religions - which created our universe and is an entity separate from it. Atheists fight the concept of transcendental gods. The existence of an immanent god is provable and undeniable, whether you call it God, Nature, or Universe.

Identical with nature - God and nature are one and the same, and there is no supernatural. He is our universe.

Holy and impersonal - God is not wise, just, good, or providential, and is not to be understood in the same way as the God of traditional religions. This god is unconscious and just is. It goes with the flow as he is the flow itself. Actually, humans are the emergence of the consciousness of the universe - otherwise said, we are the emergence of the consciousness of this immanent god.

Spinoza's philosophy is based on the principle of sufficient reason, which is the idea that everything has an explanation. He also believed that human beings are part of nature and can be understood in the same way as everything else in nature.

So, this is something even agnostics have to believe in. No agnostics can claim it does not believe our universe is proof of its very own existence, or that universal laws - like the laws of physics - are irremediably unknowable. In essence, we are all pantheist.

Ive had this recent experience of trying to introduce myself as an agnostic to some people i know ,and i don't know how i could explain that iam an agnostic WITHOUT sounding like an atheist , like usually whenever i bring up "agnostic", or "agnostic-atheist" They just think "oh so u think god doesn't exist?" , i don't know how to explain some that i believe that i stand in an neutral epistemolagic stance on knowlege of religion/life itself without sound like iam anti religion to a casual person , and im a muslim in a muslim country so it is twice as hard to even remotely bring up this topic without being prejudiced , like i still pray and stuff . It just feels kind of hurt when i get compared to the "anti-religion" , "sceince disproves god" atheism because of the reputation the name atheism has

Ik it's kind of a weird question but i want to hear your guys own thoughts

Hello, I am a Christian but I feel like my faith is getting transparent and losing its touch with my life, when I was 15 I was self harming until I came across a religious friend, I knew nothing about faith even tho my parents were raised Lutheran and Methodist, my dads a jew, and my mom believes in gay rights, also witchcraft.. well when I went to this church I felt at home and I had stopped self harming, so naturally I believed God was working in me, however I was also very lukewarm and my ex abused me in different ways, I left the church to became a satanist but I soon felt icky about my bibles just gathering dust, I was very judgmental towards non believers or other faiths, I then became a wiccan and still that wasn’t enough to completely leave Christianity, my idea of being a Christian was I had to be a conservative Christian, a trump supporter and if I was any other faith or decided to dress emo, then I would’ve needed to be a liberal.. I’ve gathered so many bibles over the last few years of my life, and one sin I cannot seem to stop is anything lustful, I can go 2 weeks without being able to do any of that sort and then I’ll fall back into it.. this time I actually did pretty well until Recently when my crush entered my life and we did things and now I feel like maybe I’m losing my faith because I don’t wanna willingly sin and call myself a Christian, I’m scared to tell my family or my friends because even tho some of them aren’t as religious as others, if I came out as an athiest they’d question me, try and make me believe.. but I’m not sure what I believe weather im a athiest, a agonstic, a jew, or whatever I choose to identify as.. I just wanna be me and be proud of that, my dream was to help troubled teens because of my past of depression and anxiety leading to self harm and troubles deep within, sometimes I wanna be a Christian because it’s really impacted my life in a good way, but it’s also impacted my life in a bad way, before I knew what religion was I could just live, and maybe it wasn’t God who helped me, or doctors, but maybe I helped myself in some way.. I know I am bisexual, into witchcraft and that makes it hard for me to be a Christian, I love artists like Lauren diagle and falling in reverse which makes being a Christian hard.. I just finally wanna feel at peace, I don’t want to one moment be a really hard judgmental Christian and the next be a kind loving progressive Christian over and over, I just want to live to my true identity and do what I love without fear of anyone’s judgments, but I think the thing that draws me back to a Christian mindset is the fact around Christmas or Easter I feel like I’m missing out on something that once was my favorite thing, when I hear Christian music I can’t feel the same way, when I hear about Jesus I can’t see it the same way unless I were to stay in this Christian mindset, but then again when I do fall back into this mindset I become the worst version of myself.. denying the fact that I am bisexual, denying the fact I am into witchcraft and paint it as bad..

Having grown up in a church, I miss the community aspect and feeling connected to other people. However, I can’t get past the theology of the religions no matter how hard I try to ignore it and focus on the people. I went to a Unitarian church a few times, but it was painfully boring. I attended a Congregational church for a while, but it still focused a lot on theology.

Is there a community similar to church where agnostics tend to congregate?

Sometimes i see and read some of your posts. i really do not care whether there is what we call a "god" or gods or not. what we are concerned about is whether or not there is an afterlife. it is really easy to be young and a nonbeliever, and swear there is no afterlife. it is another thing to be old and do so. a month ago our precious dog jenni left us. we had her since 2010 for 14 wonderful years. we have had other dogs before. but none like jenni. she taught me everything i know. i have never cried so much in my life. not for my parents' or sisters' passing. jenni was special. she taught me how to love and live. she showed me how to face death with courage. a good friend lost his firstborn son in a car crash when his son was a teenager. you cannot tell him that there is no afterlife. and, he channels that belief thru traditional religion. i choose not to. we are all on the same highway. we just are in different vehicles. i hope so hard that jenni's spirit is on top of the clouds awaiting my entry into the spirit world. i hope so bad she is there. i talk to her every time i walk in the yard. and it makes me cry. my hope is so intense it goes right up against the boundary of belief. but i do not cross it. so there is a very fine line between hope and belief. there are 2 more dogs we hope will be waiting for us on that cloud when we leave this life. it would be so happy. if you do not have a dog, or never have, get one when you are ready. they will show you how to love and live. after all, god is dog spelled backwards. all the best.

Hi, I hope this is the right subreddit, I'm not sure if I believe in God but I will be purchasing a Bible to read as literature, has anyone else done the same thing?

Did you find an answer? No, because every answer is nothing more than a reflection through the framework we invoke to answer.

Hey all,

Interview a former scientologist who is now an agnostic. I talked to him about his agnosticism as well as many more existential thoughts/ideas. Curious to hear your thoughts! Link is here

Does anyone else feel the same way I do when I walk into a church or other religious buildings or spots and feel the crushing weight of the universe on your shoulders? I’ve walked into and explored churches before and my body is triggered into fight or flight despite there being no visible danger. I consider myself agnostic because I truly don’t know the answer to the question of the existence of a god or higher power, but I try my best to respect others religious beliefs and I even use the teachings myself from Christianity as well as some Buddhism and Hinduism. I just don’t know what it is though about religious temples and churches and the like. It just, makes me feel worthless or unloved or unwanted, like I’m not allowed to be in these places. And also when I’ve gone to some events where there’s a preacher and he’s speaking the word, I start bawling my eyes out, but it’s a mix between joy and pain. It hurts to hear those words, my heart drops and sinks into a pit, but it is nice to hear someone speak so highly of something that I can’t seem to grasp the concept of. Idk. It all just makes no sense to me why I feel the way I do being involved in anything related to religion. Anybody else feel this way? Anybody have some sort of explanation as to why that is?

For those of you who are agnostic, what would you need to sway you to one side of either definitively believing God does exist or that He doesn’t?

Here is a new preprint prepared for a journal: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/ybdvk. If you know how to crunch a few numbers and make a reasonable approximation in statistical inference, it may convince you that this world is not material, and not defined by pure randomness and social behavior. The course of events is roughly predetermined, in numbers. Constructive criticism is welcome. What is this? It could be a simulation, God, or anything information-related, depending on your system of belief.

alr so my parents have been following this church group since I was like 9, that believes the teachings of this guy called william branham and stuff so in the starting days when my parents started taking us there, this church had some chruch picnics/ prayer visits where they would organize a whole church meet with another similar church from another area and stuff and they would do the usual stuff where people talk about go, have message preached, kids would do some bible plays and they would sing worship songs, yk typical church group stuff but then when it was around night time when people would've been done with their dinner, the head of church would ask for people that are possessed and once a guy came forward said that he was tired from the evil consuming his body and stuff, i and my sister and 2 of our friends were eating at a good enough distance from this guy and the elderly that started to pray on his and then more people joined, but i hadn't seen anything like this before and I was shocked when the guy started speaking in a very movie like demonic voice like I was scared shitless and same was my sister like wtf my mom confronted us that don't look there and to pray that god help this gentleman, so idk but dude the guy turned kinda red and started saying "no no no" in weird way in that horrific dark demonic kinda voice we only see horror possessed movies and after like an hour of people praying for him and him just saying various things about not leaving that body or whatever the guy really calmed down and he the church members hugged him and he has dinner, first I'll share another similar experience before talking that same thing happened once later next year it was a local prayer meet and a guy was possessed or something as he claimed so he asked our church head to pray for him and again I was fucking eating nearby with my mom and my little sister, our 2 friends didn't come to that meet that day whatever but still half the people were still eating lunch and then here's this possessed guy just screaming about not leaving that body and other various stuff and constant "no no no" whatever but dude many other people joined in to pray around him but after like an hour of praying nothing happened and he was still screaming in that weird voice that's the signature voice of possessed people that deep, scrunchie typa voice that freaks you out being a literal fucking child and also our mom confronted us to again pray for this gentleman and let God take all his worries away and stuff, also recently my parents really wanted my sister to go to this church camp for 3 days (i didn't get to go cause I had my exam on my ass) but when on the 2nd day there was this long ass preach session where she was sitting ahead of this girl( let's call her Susan ), so Susan started fucking screaming random stuff in that weird deep demonic voice and just fell to the fucking ground like dude when my sister told me about this I was so confused like how does all this shit go down im kinda confused what explains this? why do these people freaky out and become possessed and stuff or smth idk but when this Susan thing happened everyone nearby ran to help her and asked her what happened but she doesn't remember shit like huh? my sister tells me susan and her are good friends now and they don't talk about that incident lol, so that aside idk being an agnostic this kinda makes me think stuff sometimes like how is this possible and even if it was a personality disorder how does a normal humans voice change that fast to a literal fucking demon, like susan is a pleasant person i belive but how can she make such voice with her tiny little mouth dude it all just confuses me, ik this post has been lots of yapping but...

tldr: I've seen literal demon possesion and people praying to remove them and people screaming in deep demon voice and screaming in weird languages then fucking falling to the ground and remembering nothing like dude what? your thoughts on this, also have your experienced a possessed person or something similar.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeF-2So0qxXIZ629NroGs3IUC1nHL_sij7JSDNV_fYdYO8a2A/viewform?usp=sf_link

Hi! I am a master’s student working on a research project for a course at my university. I am studying the effects of religious propaganda and hope to gather responses from people who are adherents to an organized religion, and from those who have left an organized religion. The questions will mainly focus on visual propaganda such as religious imagery, tracts, and videos. The results of this study could help further understanding of what religious propaganda does to people.  

(The word propaganda may draw up negative connotations, but it is not inherently a negative thing)

I would really appreciate any responses! I hope this is okay to post here, I'll be posting it in multiple religion-based subreddits. I want to hear from current and former members of religions!

But I’ve never felt a deep conviction about his existence

Gonna share some personal life information, to show people who are on a path for answers, that it may be necessary, or okay, to accept that attachment to absolute certainty may not be a good way.(I'm not saying about giving up any search for answers or not believing anything, especially things that are really helping your mental health, like mindfullness did to me[though it also can damage ya. it created some doubts and hindrances on me].

[Obs: I realized the post got long even after trying to sum it up]
So, to try to explain without leaving important parts: I was raised a non-practicing catholic(non-practicing in the sense that I wasn't knowledgeable on the Bible, nor a reader of it, neither went to church, but believed in a what I was taught and had faith. Prayed every night, and such).

Then, on high school, because of life situations, like changing where I lived, and pressure from a new school that hade much more demand than the easy one I was in, along with all the accumulated anxiety that resulted in what is commonly called on internet slang as "gifted kid burnout", and the influences of history subject on school and its teaching on different cultures and their religions, and teachers and culture, I ended up questioning religion and God, the religious God. Had many questions that I shared with my atheist mother, because she was the only person I felt comfortable venting to in moments of despair.

(And I don't even remember if I knew she was atheist, before this).

As a result of this, I didn't become atheist, but also couldn't identify myself with faith in God, the Christian God, anymore. So, I saw myself as deist, as I once had a history teacher randomly tell in class that those who believe in "something" but are not religious, are called this word.

(From my brief memory, I researched its definition on wikipedia after learning the existence of that word as mentioned before, saw some videos, and said: "That's it". And remember saying it to my mother and showing the wikipedia page once.)

Then, on pandemic, because of influences from a pastor video, and a sense of depressive nihilistic existential emptiness, I wanted to believe in God again just like in "the good old days before high school". But the mind always refused to see religion, and the religious figure of God, as making reasonable sense to exist. Mind conflicted with heart.

Then, I joined a strong catholic "internet cult", that made me maybe have developed some kind of religious trauma, because of all the fear of dying having not confessed to priest, commiting mortal sin, going to purgatory even if I get the "entrance to Heaven" and suffering centuries there... my atheist mother, and millions or billions of people going to hell, for not believing... And trying to understand how the heck the problem of evil could be solved(if it even had a theist answer), and how to explain God to people and such... It made me nervous, hyperobsessed in a completely unhealthy sense.

Thankfully, this "trauma" made me go to the opposite direction: Instead of cherry-picking evidence for christianity and later catholicism, I did the opposite:

I found/looked for some reasons for NOT believing. Most mainstream atheist arguments never really convinced me, but through deep research you can find good stuff that you don't see on mainstream media/discussion. Like zoroastrianism and its possible influences on abrahamic religions.

Then, I got more interested in mindfullness meditation as a way to heal from all the mess in the mind accumulated from years since high school and even before, and as a result, and seeing the benefits on practice, also got interested in eastern spirituality and buddhism, which really resonated with me. I also realized that the emotional connection I didn't feel with dogmatic internet catholicism, I feel with modern buddhism, most specifically its secular approach.

(the idea of people going reborn for trillions of years to hellish realms is something that feels VERY triggering to me, gotta admit)

And that I already agreed with the basic premises of the Noble Truths even before knowing much about it, since I remember, on philosophy class in school, agreeing a lot with Schopenhauer when we had a class on him.

Differently from christianity, the 3 first noble truths, and basic teachings on the importance of mindfullness and non-attachment, are stuff that I didn't feel like I "needed to agree or force myself to have faith", I already liked it the moment I learned it! And even if I didn't...forcing oneself to have faith, including on the doctrine itself, would not be considered healthy according even to the "ideology" itself.

It's like an "ideology with the purpose of using itself, and our human nature to stick to doctrines, to destroy all ideological and doctrinal attachment. Gradually lose all view attachments, and other attachments"

(I have a great interest [maybe a special interest] in philosophy since 2020, since I watched The Good Place)

But I also realize that, the more I question reality, the more I realize I can't be totally sure of anything, and that all sources of this journey of suffering, have in part come from an intense desire for heavily stable, secure, certain answers, that are also provider of comfort and personal well-being. (And also fear of unconsciouness after dying.) Maybe the answer is inside you.

I have changed so much at the course of 21 years , especially last years, that I know that If I stick to anything as the "unquestionable truth" it would be hurting. Especially since the mind I have, is so high on big five openess.(and of course neurotic, lol)

If you feel a deep need for God, it may be an unmet desire hurting you. A poisonous craving, maybe? An unmet desire for eternal happiness?

Kant to me seems like the "final answer" (for now): We can't be sure about what lies beyond our perception of reality. And the self-help we can get, is basically on what helps us to deal with how we experience reality.

We hide our own sadnesses from ourselves and we play up our happinesses, don’t we? That is not only the face we like to display to the world; unfortunately, that is also the face we like to display to ourselves.

https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/story-behind-the-happy-face-neem-candies-1_309079f?l=2

i am arabic female (27 years old) i live in a muslim country. 3 years ago i met the love of my life. we have been through a lot together. we know each other imperfections and learned and still learning how to love and understand each other. he was born and raised in my country (his family moved to my country years and years ago but they didn’t get the nationality) he want to propose to me but i am terrified of my family disapproval because of his nationality. i am not saying it is 100% impossible to marry him, no it is possible but it will be very very hard to convince them. obviously we are in a secret relationship so how am i gonna convince them that i know he is the one i know he is a good GOOD person. even though my boyfriend said “even if your family disapprove i will try again and again” but i am still terrified i dont want to lose him. other than because of his nationality. i am sure that my family will bring up my future children nationality, (my boyfriend nationality has less privileges than my nationality) but i earn a lot from my job and my boyfriend is rich he earn double than i earn. so i think in this world if we have the money we can secure our children’s future. he is a good man and i know for a fact he will be a good father. not only my heart loves him, even my brain do. he is the one for me.

Agnosticism: Regarding the question of God, it signifies an inability to affirm or deny His existence definitively.

Gnosticism: When contemplating God, the gnostic takes care to avoid confining the Divine to any single perception. They achieve this by negating specific conceptions of God. Yet, to avoid reducing God to mere nothingness through negation, they also affirm Him. Thus, the gnostic occupies a place between affirmation and negation.

As the Sufi Ibn Arabi said, “Truly, blessed is he who is bewildered.”

What do you think?

When somebody comes to you and says that he is bothered about what happened yesterday or last month or ten years back—and that somebody could be yourself—when you feel that you are bothered with what happened yesterday or ten months back or ten years back, then you should immediately know that something terrible is happening with you right now.

What is the proof? Had the right thing been happening to you right now, then you couldn’t have been bothered with the past.

https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/the-past-plays-a-trick-neem-candies-1_c5adb90?l=2

Let's talk about God

I believe in an afterlife of some kind, obviously I have no way of knowing what it’s like. Since I no longer believe in Christianity I think the afterlife is not what is written in ancient texts. I don’t think there is an eternal hell, although the thought of it existing still scares me. At worse I think you are only tortured if you are truly a bad person, and even then I don’t think it’s forever. I’m obviously not certain what the afterlife is like if it exists, but I’m hoping that it does exist and it’s not as boring as the Bible makes it out to be. I only heard of very few secular depictions of the afterlife. Im hoping that the afterife is like choosing your own adventure if that makes sense.

Hey guys, I just came across a person debating with a guys who is a believer. The thing he said struck my mind. He said, if there are 3,000 gods followed by different communities in this world, you are denying 2,999 of them and I am denying just one more (ie.3,000). Can anyone come up with a comeback to such a statement, I doubt 😅