Occasionally find myself envying people with faith and wonder how my life is different than theirs.
Pretty well, it lets me do things Jesus frowns upon and actually enjoy my life instead of being a spiritual slave to a human invention.
I can’t think of anything I do that Jesus would frown upon. Leviticus? Yeah, I eat shellfish and the like, so probably he’d frown, but I think the main complaint from Jesus would be that I haven’t given up all my worldly goods and helped the sick and poor enough – and I don’t think he’d be all that mad, regardless. It’s not like I’m trying to make profits off money-changing in front of the temple.
Doesn’t doing all of the things you want to do still make you a slave, spiritual or otherwise, to a human invention? Your desires are created by yourself or others.
It doesn’t. I don’t think about it at all, honestly. Faith doesn’t play a role in my life.
If anything, I feel it gives clarity to be aware that there’s no higher being, and secure app inherent meaning or purpose with life.
Shit happens for no particular reason, and not because of fate or karma or whatnot.
Good stuff happens because of skill, hard work, and fortunate circumstances.
Actions have consequences. Not understanding this, or blaming some religious aspect, is stupid.
You can always pretend you have an imaginary friend to talk to and that they will make everything better. The only difference is that everyone claims they have the same imaginary friend. That club is always accepting new members.
I’m a full-blown atheist. My dad died a couple of years ago and I “talk” to him frequently simply because I’m accustomed to doing it and it’s a nice thing to imagine. I know full well that there’s no magical way he’s still around and listening to me, but humans gonna human and there’s nothing wrong with having quirks like that.
I recall reading a study a long time back where researchers put people in fMRI machines to monitor their pattern of brain activity and then asked them to consider some kind of ethical question. Some of the subjects were told to talk to an attendant who was physically present, some were told to talk to themselves about it, and some were told to talk to whatever deity they believed in about it. The brain activity patterns for talking to someone physically present were different from the brain activity patterns for talking to oneself, but the activity patterns for talking to oneself and talking to God were identical. It was a neat result.
Edit: It’s not exactly as I remembered it, but given how human memory works I bet this is the article I was thinking of.
I have an intern. Whenever I am confused or angry about something at work, which is often, I just talk to him. Something isn’t working that should be, explain it to him. Demonstrate how I am right and the tech is somehow wrong. In the process I usually find the solution.
He technically doesn’t report to me he reports to the general manager. I have told the general manager on multiple occasions that he is to please do whatever it takes to keep him here because production would grind to a halt.
Get an intern.
I can’t imagine going through life thinking that everything I love and/or desire will send me to hell or whatever. Imagine living in fear because you think someone is watching and judging you. No thanks.
I don’t see any advantage to having any kind of religious faith. Seems like it just limits your options and gives you nothing in return.
Spoiler alert: most people don’t really have faith, especially the ones screaming at you loudly how much they have it.
When you realize that, you’ll see that people are a lot more similar across all religions - authentic/thinking people from any background at all on one side, vs. those who merely “inherit” their beliefs without every really challenging them at all on the other.
Right now there are many people leaving a religion and going to atheism so much like lemmy/kbin it has that “early-generation” ring to it, but give it a few hundred years and dumb people who inherit it will just as dumbly smash others over the head with that non-religion as people have for countless millennia with past religions.
My advice: KEEP QUESTIONING! If you happened to come from a Christian or Muslim background, there is 1 Thessalonians 5:21 that literally commands that, therefore asking questions is in no way contradictory to whatever “faith” means - and anyway how could someone have that if they did not even know what it meant?
I agree, I think that a lot of people who are raised that way are afraid to question. Hell is a pretty terrifying consequence for those who believe there’s even a possibility that it’s true. So I think a lot of them are trying to go through the motions just to rest assured that if they call themselves Christians and followed certain rituals that they’re safe.
Deciding I didn’t believe in hell was the first step and the rest of my faith quickly unraveled after that.
What’s really weird - and I hope you take some comfort in this rather than be offended - is that you stand with Jesus in thinking that. I know, extremely ironic right?! :-P
“Do not heap heavy burdens upon others without offering to lift a finger to help them…”, “Pay the worker their due wages, immediately not waiting until some other day…”, “Consider the poor and alien among you as one of your own…”, a lot of Christians would be shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED (well, they shouldn’t be all that shocked) to find out what lays hidden in that B-I-B-L-E that so many claim to cherish.
Like somehow the church-going, cis-het family-man with 2.3 kids and a picket fence Obama is the Spawn of Satan while the oh-so-pious Donald tRump who shits on gold toilets and doesn’t even drive his own car in NYC but instead flies above the common man on a heli is “God’s Man”, as well as a “true man of the people”, “he gets us”? (to be clear: by “us” I mean “them”) Uh… nope. The Bible has a few things to say about False Doctrine as well… flee from it!
So like, even if you believed in hell, and in fact all the more so if you do, then that’s all the more reason to not be a bigoted asshole, not less!
Jesus was okay with honest sinners - but the ones he HATED the most (in fact, the ONLY ones He hated), with an absolute PASSION even, where the Karens of His day, aka the “super-Christians” of the time, loudmouthed bigots who literally killed Him b/c he kept trying to like feed the poor and shit, claiming that they were just as good as the Religious Leaders (and in fact way better).
