young people leaving religion (yayyy)

[yubacity]

Even though im a atheist i have met so many great people at the temple and church i don't hate religion

 

[Brendan12]

The problem of evil always begs the question of freewill..

But urges inertia and momentum are the arguments that you could not have done something different..

Asking the question "where did I come from?" and "where am I going?"

But you must take responsibility for both..

The continuum thus satisfied.

 

[yubacity]

That s horrendous, my man, and I can t even imagine how that shit affected u,and honestly I work a lot on the "problem of evil " from an academic point of view but when I m confronted with the "real deal " I don t know what to say. Still, IMHO God gave us free will, some people abuse this freedom some people use it for doing good things. Moreover IMHO God does not cause evil, at most He permits evil, in order to gain a greater good or to avoid some worse evil. what s worse than abusing a child ? I really dunno, but I know that you have your demons like everyone here on BL still from what I read you are a good husband, a good father, an hard working man, you do your best to give good advice here on BL despite all the shit you had to face. You could have been an abuser yourself but you are not. Here in Brazil they say "Deus da o frio conforme o cobertor" ( literally "God deals out cold based on the size of the blanked" ) , basically the stronger you are the more God allows you to experience shit because He knows u can handle it; and with your up and downs you are handling it. I had to face way less shit than u and mostly I had failed miserably, at times I got it right, I ve seen a lot of evil but also a lot of unexpected good, people I loved let me down and strangers helped me out (i.e. your fellow Sikhs when I was basically starving in London, the people here on BL, etc), I m increasingly convinced that everything has a purpose and that evil is not God´s fault but man´s fault, God gives us the tools to deal with it as long as we are here and also and more importantly our life "down here" is not the end but the beginning. Sorry if I sound preachy but as I said your fellow Sikhs basically saved my life and my faith in God and in humanity back in the days so I feel like I "owe" you something. Btw how crazy is that, an Italian Catholic chatting with an atheist from a Sikh background on an harm reduction site???

My wife a catholic american but dutch catholic ancestry i admit when i go to midnight mass at Christmas for my wife im normally buzzing on coke and heroin temple or church i find when im there i feel peace. I felt pride at my kids confirmation my girls in their dress my whole family would come from the states Sikhs in church watching family members.

 

[skipjames]

My wife we been together since 15 i love her so much but im a cheat i cant even tell you how many time iu have cheated on her ewven though sex with her is the best not becuase of the sex but also it a connection we have the love .

I remember i had a taxi job taking people to the shard to eat and a 3 hour wait before taking them back . while i waiting for them i went to theshard station brought some sweets as i came out there was a young girl sitting there begging i had 40 ponds in my pocket i sat with her and gave her that and said i get more money out and give her that . She said to me rather then more money can i just have a hug . As i huggerd her she gave me such a tight hug i teared up what had this poor girl gone through where all she wanted was a hug from someone that cared . I have gone back so many times to look for her thought i help her give her somewhere to live but she not there i would love to help her for her to know i care she not scum im here for 2 months will try every week to find her there

that s what I m talking about. I ve had an on and off relationship with opioids for the last 17 years, in Italy in the Uk and here in Brazil, I know as you know the situations u can find yourself into in this scene. Stuff that can make you an heartless asshole but here we are, trying to be kind and decent to our fellow human beings despite our flaws. is addiction nice? no way. But personally made me realize that we are all on the same fucked up boat, made me way less judgemental and made me realize a lot of things about human nature. I think is the same with you. Was it meant to be? I dunno, in the Gospels it says that loving God and loving your neighbor are one and the same, I m trying...

 

[skipjames]

The problem of evil always begs the question of freewill..

But urges inertia and momentum are the arguments that you could not have done something different..

Asking the question "where did I come from?" and "where am I going?"

But you must take responsibility for both..

The continuum thus satisfied.

I think that freewill is always situational. I don t see it as a limitation but as a condition of possibility: I have free will not despite the fact, but because I am a human being born in a specific place and time etc. It s great but also a burden, at times I think that addiction is so alluring because it can free ourselves from our freedom in a way...

 

[yubacity]

that s what I m talking about. I ve had an on and off relationship with opioids for the last 17 years, in Italy in the Uk and here in Brazil, I know as you know the situations u can find yourself into in this scene. Stuff that can make you an heartless asshole but here we are, trying to be kind and decent to our fellow human beings despite our flaws. is addiction nice? no way. But personally made me realize that we are all on the same fucked up boat, made me way less judgemental and made me realize a lot of things about human nature. I think is the same with you. Was it meant to be? I dunno, in the Gospels it says that loving God and loving your neighbor are one and the same, I m trying...

I never judge no one i have money now but the people that work for me are my family during these hard times i raised their pay by a third . How much do we need who are we to judge we dont know a persons life and we know how easy it seems to use opium as a way of helping us deal with shit . I was just lucky i met the women of my dreams who if i not had her i be dead . When my old man kicked me out for wanting to marry a white girl i had less then 30 dollars in my pocket even though i drove truck for him for 4 years i had nothing .
As i walked to my the fiance house i remember sitting at table numb thinking i lost my family her mom put her arms around me and said dont think you have no family we your family a catholic family helped me . My wifes faith kept her with me all the cheating she forgave me her faith kept her strong . If not for them and me being a functioning addict i would be begging. I cant be a cunt i care i really do i know what childhood trauma leads to i know how addiction can trap us .You are right we hate being addicted but that does not mean we lose our heart our empathy . This site saved me people i never met helped me so much people like us dealing with our own trauma but still care still love our neighbour . My wife goes to temple cooks food with the punjabi moms and grandmothers not once has anyone said convert Sikhs believe in one god differant paths but one god . I used to do sikh prayer when young ewvery night please god stop all this but it did nor but my wife said god put us together and we got 4 great kids . Still have a chuckle at lent when she splits one meal in half one half for lunch the other for dinner sometimes she forgoes sex during those weeks

 

[yubacity]

You give love you get love back during my coke binges when im sitiing in my office people who work for me bring food try to get me to eat make sure im ok . They make my business not me they become family

 

[skipjames]

i find when im there i feel peace

that s the Real Presence of Christ for you ( you know for us Catholics Christ is present in the Eucharist). I basically feel something remotely similar to peace without drugs only at Mass or after sex

 

[Juniper Bruhmomentius]

Not so sure about it, usually when religion is abandoned is followed by either atrocious ideologies ( communism, nazism, nationalism, pretty much any ism) or by a widespread unsustainable nihilism ( see Europe)

Hey, whats so wrong about absurdism???

 

[yubacity]

that s the Real Presence of Christ for you ( you know for us Catholics Christ is present in the Eucharist). I basically feel something remotely similar to peace without drugs only at Mass or after sex

I feel peace and it not the heroin when im at a place of worship and the people are nice welcoming like i said i nwould love to have Faith tried it but it is just not there

 

[skipjames]

my wife said god put us together and we got 4 great kids

and how cool is that? You could have said fuck it but you have invested in your relationship, I could have kept sleeping around but I have invested in mine, IMHO God gave us an opportunity and for a chance we have made the right choice.

during my coke binges when im sitiing in my office people who work for me bring food try to get me to eat make sure im ok

cocaine is a bitch. I ve underestimated the thing ( " I mean it s not smack right?") and ffs...give me opioid addiction anytime

 

[skipjames]

Hey, whats so wrong about absurdism???

A la Camus? I think it s a start, then u might go Kierkeegard then I ll see u at Mass Seriously it s a position that I respect but it s like radical skepticism, unlivable at least for the majority of people, humans need to take something for granted and if it s not God and it s not drugs ( the only two certainties worth having) it s all kinds of BS. I m glad that my addictions at least saved me from political radicalism...

 

[yubacity]

and how cool is that? You could have said fuck it but you have invested in your relationship, I could have kept sleeping around but I have invested in mine, IMHO God gave us an opportunity and for a chance we have made the right choice.

cocaine is a bitch. I ve underestimated the thing ( " I mean it s not smack right?") and ffs...give me opioid addiction anytime

I will admit i would see her in the quad at lunch talking to my pals but looking at her .. She saved me not only in my suicide attempt but i had it in my mind at 18 i buy a gun shoot the old man and kill myself . But at 15 when we jooked up i did not want to no more i wanted to be with her so the murder suicide went out the window . Some nights i have a dream im young again and im at my parents that fear comes back i wake scared she piuts the lovely long dutch leg around me hug me and give me a kiss and i relax . She is my heaven all i want if there is a god plkease take me before her i go crazy if it the other way around .
Her faith made her not to resent okd man he said horrible things about how a white women will never be faithful not once after kids born she stop the old man seeing the kids . After we married he saw her at the mall told she his daughter now and if his son give her trouble tell him . Towards the end of his life he said sorry to her said she his daughter not daughter in law .

 

[nepalnt21]

a couple points of contention:

atheist north korea

north korea is not atheistic. they worship their dead leader kim il sung, and their ridiculous ideology has become their religion.

atheist stalinist russia ... killed the most

although there are examples of the state (as well rogue atheist death squads) killing religious leaders and destroying places of worship, the mass murders that stalin perpetuated were mainly (afaik) about his twisted ideology, as well as paranoia and thirst for more and more power... not really in the name of atheism.

usa is better in the post-Christian era

the united states of america has always been a secular nation. culturally, it is still christianity that permeates most facets of society, but our government (thankfully) has never officilly been a christian government (and hopefully never will be, although ppl like desantis are working on sullying that good wall of separation).

No salvation army

fuuuggggthesalvationarmy, js


----‐-----------------------
anyway, secular nations tend to be better than religious nations, ditto for the states in the u.s.

if you hate being murdered, raped, stolen from, and having a corrupt government -
- if you like helping moms stay happy, healthy, and alive... and having a good education system, you'll have better luck in a secular nation (i advocate for freedom of religion, as well as freedom FROM religion) or one of the more secular states.

 

[nepalnt21]

radical skepticism

lol those ppl piss me off... coming into a debate with the whole "you can't know anything" is the most useless position to argue. like i know, i came to that conclusion decades ago and moved on with my life... i know, like duh... cogito ergo sum and all that, now let's jump over that hurdle and have a productive debate!!!

Why buy when you can-get for free?

maybe one to have for reference in case of some christians proselytizing at me, but i'm not really even interested in getting one for free. i have one leftover from my (private, christian) high school religion classes, but if it disappeared i don't think i'd miss it much... afterall, i can look up verses on the internet (like matthew 6:5-6, exodus 21, and leviticus 25).

 

[Brendan12]

I think that freewill is always situational. I don t see it as a limitation but as a condition of possibility: I have free will not despite the fact, but because I am a human being born in a specific place and time etc. It s great but also a burden, at times I think that addiction is so alluring because it can free ourselves from our freedom in a way...

Free ourselves from our freedom!

Brilliant!

 

[Neuroborean]

OHHHH yes, very much so.

maybe once religion is the extreme minority, we can move on and start the hard journey to making life a heaven on earth.

In fact, most people (in the West) have moved away from religion, another thing is what is perceived in the USA (which is not representative of the rest of the world or the West).
I think you fall into a naive trap that many people have fallen into, myself for years, I think I admit that I was like that.
To think that "heaven on Earth" can be created is quite naive.
The human being is an imperfect being, the Earth itself is a place that despite all its beauty and riches is also full of pain and cruelty. Nature does not think about the well-being of anyone, it follows a logic that is beyond our parameters of goodness or evil. Trying to accommodate to it will always be a challenge, and even if we overcome it, we would end up with an even bigger problem (which we are seeing today): facing ourselves as beings with sensitivity and language.
Do we know ourselves? can we even live in peace?
The aspiration to "create heaven on earth" begins with humanism and renaissance. Look if that idea and that claim that, in philosophy, was considered closed when the two world wars took place, by the way, I don't know if you have noticed, but we are at the gates of the third...

This has little to do with what is happening with religion, although religion made by imperfect humans has led to a lot of death and wars.
But right now, with the "humanist", "scientific" and materialist idea of "progress" it is leading us to a world of crazy people who only look out for their interests, and in some cases they justify it by saying that it is "human nature".
In a certain way it is so, because when the human being stops seeking transcendence, the "gods" that replace an all-powerful and kind God are usually quite violent "gods", and as amoral as nature.

Nietzsche himself commented that one had to be "cruel" to succeed and be able to exercise the "will to power", "sink the weak" and rise up by trampling them, "help them fall", he said...
You can read the philosopher Emile Cioran, who is by no means a pro-religious philosopher, although it is true that he admired mystics. He is a very intelligent guy and in many ways he surpasses Nietzsche in his "atheist" positions, explaining with much more sagacity where a world without God leads us. He considered Nietzsche naive, naive. Among other things for trying to replace God with a form of "progress" the god of the "superman". Heaven on earth as a form of material equality for all in a purely materialistic way has already been criticized by Nietzsche himself, who considered socialism as a "vulgar", materialistic version of Christianity.
What do we want then? And where are we going to establish those values, whether they are Christian or not, whether they are new or not, in a world that has no faith in anything?

Ask yourself that question, because you only have to check what shitty music Gen Z listen to to realize what they "believe".

 

[EvidenceOfTheResurrection]

Yes this is all we got i would love to believe me and my wife and kids be together in heaven but i never in my mind believed it .
I help loads of my friends give to NSPCC because I feel for them, not for some reward . As a child my old man beat the cunt out of me and my brothers . During summer vacation i went to a relative thought she love me and it be 2 weeks of respite from beatings before the peach harvest started she drugged me up and for 2 weeks i was sexually abused. What god would do to a child?

Wow Im sorry.

 

[EvidenceOfTheResurrection]

a couple points of contention:


north korea is not atheistic. they worship their dead leader kim il sung, and their ridiculous ideology has become their religion.



although there are examples of the state (as well rogue atheist death squads) killing religious leaders and destroying places of worship, the mass murders that stalin perpetuated were mainly (afaik) about his twisted ideology, as well as paranoia and thirst for more and more power... not really in the name of atheism.



the united states of america has always been a secular nation. culturally, it is still christianity that permeates most facets of society, but our government (thankfully) has never officilly been a christian government (and hopefully never will be, although ppl like desantis are working on sullying that good wall of separation).



fuuuggggthesalvationarmy, js


----‐-----------------------
anyway, secular nations tend to be better than religious nations, ditto for the states in the u.s.

if you hate being murdered, raped, stolen from, and having a corrupt government -
- if you like helping moms stay happy, healthy, and alive... and having a good education system, you'll have better luck in a secular nation (i advocate for freedom of religion, as well as freedom FROM religion) or one of the more secular states.

You can research it more if you want, as wikipedia can be wrong. But I trust it on this one:

Religion in North Korea​

There are no known official statistics of religions in North Korea. Officially, North Korea is an atheist state, although its constitution guarantees free exercise of religion, provided that religious practice does not introduce foreign forces, harm the state, or harm the existing social order.

———

Gulags in Russia had loudspeakers playing 24/7: “God is dead and Jesus Christ is a lie”. Exact opposite of the truth as God is alive and Jesus Christ is literally the truth. The evil empire (ussr) was also officially atheist. By their own records in 1992, they had murdered 100 million people across the world. Incidentally, to this day not a single hollywood film has been made about the wall coming down.

———

One common mistake is to group nations as religious or not. As if it doesn’t matter WHICH religion.

———

Yes the US was founded with freedom of religion as a core value. But the founding fathers talked endlessly about the surprising work Jesus was doing. They issued 1400 public calls for prayer in 20 years, often mentioning Jesus. Going back to addresses by past presidents makes on feel like he’s reading Billy Graham sermons. The very first things the pilgrims did was to erect a cross and draft and sign a document dedicating the continent to Jesus Christ. There’s this (intentional Imo) skewing of the beliefs of the founders to reduce their Christianity. It starts by picking the few who were not rapid Christians and talking a lot about them. It then goes to pulling quotes from times in their lives when they were questioning (as if anyone has the same beliefs their entire life). All our great universities started to study the Bible (harvard seminary, princeton seminary, on and on and on).

Until the leftists began to arise in the mid twentieth century, there was never any idea that the constitution protected government from religion, but rather religion from government. The Bible is the basis of our legal system. And the basis of equal rights. The red cross, the peace corps, the salvation army, doctors without borders, and basically every homeless shelter in America even to this day.. all Christian. The first hospital in Europe, the first orphanage rather than a child labor camp. Western civilization from the great cathedrals to the laws to Newton, Keplar, Galileo, Von Linne Bach, Dickens, Dostoevsky, and all the rest…. All Christian. And in the post-Christian era, it’s no coincidence the West is falling apart and being surpassed by other nations.

 

[nepalnt21]

Officially, North Korea is an atheist state

do you also believe north korea that they're "democratic"? their worship of their dead leader is very well known. he is their "eternal leader", and their political ethos is now their religion. it is anything but a free, secular society.

Gulags in Russia

my point was that stalin did not kill all those millions of people in the name of atheism... you seemed to have scooted right past that point.

As if it doesn’t matter WHICH religion.

why would it? secular nations and states are better places to live, religious... worse. plain, simple, uncomplicated.

founding fathers

made a secular nation. this is not really disputed by anyone who knows what they're talking about, only religious people that want to hijack the country and turn it into their own theocracy (i will fight these evil people).

look at the " no religious test" clause of article vi of the constitution, and look at the establishment clause of the first amendment.

there was never any idea that the constitution protected government from religion

that's just plain old wrong.

thomas jefferson:

'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."'