Can second. I grew up in a Protestant Church like this, and it's a great community. Nice and welcoming people are sometimes rare these days.
I can't help but think that it's just not "cool" to be religious. It's seen as things our parents did, and every one wants to be an edgy atheist. For better or for worse, humans drew community from their churches (or other religious institutions) for a very long time. Churches were uniquely well-suited to "scale" with modern life and urbanization, especially compared to other traditional communities. I'm not saying you have to be any specific religion; I'm guessing many other religions are welcoming as well. But pick something where you can find a community of friendly people who share your values (this is possibly most important).
Edit: I see that the parent comment has now felt compelled to apologize for suggesting that religion could be a good thing. That's pretty sad. Just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean it can't be a helpful thing for others. Quite frankly, I also believe it's helpful for mental health. Believing that when you die you will just disappear is a rather depressing worldview, and I know people with serious health issues who are atheists and are struggling with that. Same with many aging people. On the other hand, being able to "offer something up to God" can be quite cathartic and an excellent way to relive stress.
Priests were the therapists of olden days.
Edit 2: For further clarification, here's my response to those who say "just gather like-minded people". It's much harder to do that without religion. The best definition of religion I ever heard was "an ideology that provides a comprehensive worldview". In other words, something that shapes your perspective on and understanding of every thing else. It is not easy to find such a group of people who share such basic understandings and values without the use of religion.
Religion combines two things and some people only want one: opportunity to socialize and build friendships with people who share values; and a belief in supernatural actors.
I think the problem with this is that one of those values has to be to consistently attend the meeting. Supernaturalism offers this. Video games rely on consistently being entertained by video games; once it's not fun, you can just leave.
>Believing that when you die you will just disappear is a rather depressing worldview, and I know people with serious health issues who are atheists and are struggling with that.
True, the issue is I can't just decide to believe that magic exists and tomorrow I will believe it as a fact without any doubts, IMO it would be great if I could believe, I would know that justice exists and if I do good then I will b rewarded, but wishing to believe is not enough for some people that for some reason think more critically.
I am not against religion and I would never attempt to "convert" someone to atheism, if someone is happy with his religion and it is not pushing it on me then I am happy for them.
The more I look at it most of what is called science is just as magical when you move outside of the directly observable.
Take the big bang, people proclaim that it answers the question of where the universe comes from but it does no better of a job than religion. Both start from a place of preexistence, either god or the energy required to create the universe exist prior to the start of the explanation. Neither actually answer the question.
It is supreme arrogance to assume we have it right and all the ones before us had it wrong. Truth is we have no idea about much of anything, especially the universe or ourselves and it's all essentially blind faith.
Scientific consensus is just the new papal decree.
It is supreme arrogance to assume we have it right and all the ones before us had it wrong. Truth is we have no idea about much of anything, especially the universe or ourselves and it's all essentially blind faith.
Scientific consensus is just the new papal decree.
We have been to the bottom of the ocean and orbited the globe. We have put people on the moon and robots on Mars. We have sent probes beyond the far reaches of the solar system and we have peered into the depths of the universe.
All of these things we've done, not with arrogance, but with humility. The central scientific principle is that we are fallible creatures who have no privileged access to the truth. Only through the hard work of experimentation and repetition can we build any semblance of a model for reality.
And yet we maintain that "all models are wrong, some are useful." [1]
I do think there is a problem with something I'll call "science-ism", which involves people picking and choosing from "science" to support a position or worldview they have, without any critical thinking involved. And to some degree, in some populations this unquestioned adherence to a vaguely claimed result from "science" has replaced a unquestioned andherence to one taken from "religion".
But that is not what science is. Science, for all of its flaws and challenges, is simply the best systemic approach for understanding the world around us that human beings have ever come up with. It's not even a close contest. It isn't perfect. It makes errors and is too slow to correct them. There are interesting a meaningful questions it can't really address. It is hard work to do well. But it does work - and has led to most of the large improvements in human lives that we've seen in centuries, at least. And it does that work by being the opposite of what you claim. Understanding that we too have it wrong, that we are building on the work of those who came before, and we are iteratively building a better understanding.
Your comment about cosmology is telling. The ideas behind the big bang theory are categorically different than religious cosmology. Consider two things 1) They didn't come from "just" and idea, they were arrived at by trying to understand the implications of the models we saw agreeing very, very well with observed physics. 2) If a better explanation comes along, physics will (begrudgingly perhaps, and slowly perhaps) adopt it and throw out the big bang theory.
Let me tell you my main point, and it is not related with science or who created the universe. Most religions(I am a ortodox christian in Romania) tell that God is good and fair, I look around me and I do not see a fair and good world, so using my own intelect I decide that there are 2 possibilities:
1 a fair and kind god does not exist ( a healthy in the mind human won't let children die)
2 god exists but and his actions or inactions are not on my liking, I can't respect and worship such a god.
Now some religios people will appear and tell stories about how we can't understand why god does X but it never convinces me. Again is not about science, I can ignore the creationists stories as just stories, the full God is kind and fair is what makes me convinced that there is nothing like this in this world.
Can you tell me? Something like I am too stupid to understand why the bad things happen? How kindly god lets children die when any human would do better? Sorry I won't worhip a god that is inhuman.
"Free will" is the possibility I was thinking about. Basically that God has relinquished control over a lot of things so that we can have a true free will. That means that our actions must have irreversible consequences.
I accounted for this, if God exists but he is just watching like a scientists watches ants then for me is not a good/kind god, a father so I can't respect and worship that.
I am thinking at a story in the Bible where God and the Devil discuss about a guy (not sure his english name, it is named Iov in my language) and God agrees to test the guy and kills his children, Iov continues to worship God and at the end God gives him other children, for me children are not like objects, you kill them to test my reactions and if I pass you give me other children or other reward, for me this shows a God that has no empathy or humanity, maybe I am too low level to understand the superior plan but you have Judas that should have seen miracles daily and he lost his faith, how you expect someone that never sees any miracle, that sees the world how unfair it is to believe (considering the most priests still try to convince you that the wold is only 5000 years old and tons of other crap in the Old Testament)
I don't think that free will means that God watches detached like a scientist.
The first story you recount is about Job. My personal take about Job is that the story about God and the Devil is an explanation for why bad things happen to good people, i.e. one of the consequences of free will means that Karma doesn't work. Sure God let it happen to Job but not because He was in cahoot with the Devil but because of free will.
The second story about Judas, I don't think it's true that he lost his faith. I think either Judas was plain greedy or more likely he saw all those miracles and thought that by turning Jesus over to the Jewish leaders he would force Jesus' hand to use His power to overthrow the Roman government and let Jews rule their own kingdom with Jesus as king.
> considering the most priests still try to convince you that the wold is only 5000 years old
I agree with you here. My personal ideology is to always follow the truth with an open mind and not be afraid of where that leads me. Some say that religion is truth but I don't see it as a tautology. Even a religion needs to prove its claims of the truth.
Not sure I buy your Judas story, if he believed then he was stupid to sell God. You also have the other disciple Thomas (sorry I am not sure the right name translation) he also did not believe that Jesus could have reviewed, so again a person that knew Jesus in person did not believe in him how should I that I only see the unfair world and the Bible that is full of historical mistakes presented as truth,
Anyway my problem is that I had faith when I was young, I was brainwashed with this religious stories and I even wanted to become a priest , but I lost the faith, I can't believe, I read the Bible and I seen the world, maybe only f I see a miracle or see a devil or ghost I could have some doubts that there are supra natural things. (coincidentally when I was young I was also believing in ghosts, vampires witches )
How would you find the truth about God, let's consider that from the 10+ major religion neither is the correct one, do you try to find something that is common in all religions, or only in major ones? If you believe there is a God is there also a Devil that is all the time tricking you and you need to be paranoid and question everything?
Do you believe? do you have no doubts? Do you try to think about those doubts or you attempt to push the thoughts away so you don't upset God that you are considering what if he does not exists or what if your religion is the wrong one, really bad one.
> Do you believe? do you have no doubts? Do you try to think about those doubts or you attempt to push the thoughts away so you don't upset God that you are considering what if he does not exists or what if your religion is the wrong one, really bad one.
Honestly I'm not sure what I believe. I lean towards believing in a God but I'm full of doubt about the essence of God. I was brought up in a Christian home and like you really religious when a kid. We had a "high ceiling" both at home and in the church, encouraging individual thinking and discussion so I never felt brainwashed. If there is a God I think He/She is greater than any religion can encompass, so there may be strands of truth in many religions.
I don't worry so much over having the correct faith (IMHO any God worth their salt would not condemn a man based on things unknowable) as about the consequences of my actions (or in-actions). So for me, any religion that encourages its followers to do good things to other people, and not bad things to other people seems like it can't be really bad (it can still be practiced badly..). Following the teachings of Jesus then seems like a good idea ("Love thy neighbor...Do unto others... etc"). Unfortunately, while a lot of Christians do that, a lot of them don't.
While I tend to believe myself to be quite rational, I still prefer to keep an open mind about these things. If you've read C.S Lewis "The magicians nephew", there's a part in the book where all the animals start talking, but the magician only hears growls and animalistic sounds because he has convinced himself that it simply cannot be that the animals speak. That's my greatest fear, that I've closed my mind to possibilities outside of my very limited comprehension.
[edit]
> Not sure I buy your Judas story, if he believed then he was stupid to sell God.
I'm not sure I think Judas believed Jesus was God, I think Judas may have believed him to be the Messiah, who many Jewish groups had differing ideas about. Some believed the Messiah would be an earthly king, and I believe that Judas may have been one of those people.
I have yet to see someone give a definition of free will that is both logically consistent and not just a veneer over sufficiently complex behaviours where there ultimately is no agency.
Sometimes that irreversible consequence is genocide which by definition has a lot of people with extremely limited possibility to exercise that free will. Like having choice between suicide and being killed for no own fault. Or just killed full stop.
And it is not like genocide would be only example, just extremely easy one.
In simolar situation, when boss or company just let's people to do whatever and then laws get broken, people harass each other and children bully each other, we blame teachers and bosses and parents.
You can't play reaponsible father while letting children bully sibling. Not even in kids adulthood.
Those are all consequences of people opting to use their free will maliciously.
Not letting a child bully a sibling means imposing a limit on said first child's free will. In most societies that is considered a good thing so even if we value our children's free will, we will limit it if they hurt someone else. Most people would agree that limiting a child's free will in such cases is a good thing to do, yet it does limit free will.
There are lot of non human terrible things happening, like viruses or earth-quakes, this is not a free will thing, do we blame the devil? or do we blame the humans and say that God is teaching them a lesson, or we say that the people that suffered will get rewarded in the after life and we don't even try to explain the nature because God knows better.
I dislike the fact that if something good happens is God fault, he made a miracle, if something bad happens we find someone else to blame.
Well for one, not every religion purports an afterlife. Where I quibble though is for two notions. 1: I think the perspective of those either denying or being apathetic about the possibility of an afterlife is in fact life-affirming. Hume is like this for instance. One has to seize it while it lasts; this is not contingent on there being an afterlife. Whether you think there's an afterlife or not, life ends. The stoics and Buddhists and the like opt to navigate with an emphasis on self-mastery and acceptance of that which is out of control. If we're comparing anecdotes, I don't recognize them to be a depressive bunch. And 2: I expect the comfort of religion is far less so about an afterlife than the gamification of life, winning spirit "points", borrowing pre-cut meaning espoused from dogma to relieve the depression of a toiling, dull life. But it needn't be so. I think meaning is a personal responsibility, and not everyone has the wherewithal to decide it for themselves. That's a task. There's nothing inherently depressing about not knowing what happens when we die - it's misdirection, depression is about life itself. I am a happy atheist.
I can't help but think that it's just not "cool" to be religious. It's seen as things our parents did, and every one wants to be an edgy atheist. For better or for worse, humans drew community from their churches (or other religious institutions) for a very long time. Churches were uniquely well-suited to "scale" with modern life and urbanization, especially compared to other traditional communities. I'm not saying you have to be any specific religion; I'm guessing many other religions are welcoming as well. But pick something where you can find a community of friendly people who share your values (this is possibly most important).
Edit: I see that the parent comment has now felt compelled to apologize for suggesting that religion could be a good thing. That's pretty sad. Just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean it can't be a helpful thing for others. Quite frankly, I also believe it's helpful for mental health. Believing that when you die you will just disappear is a rather depressing worldview, and I know people with serious health issues who are atheists and are struggling with that. Same with many aging people. On the other hand, being able to "offer something up to God" can be quite cathartic and an excellent way to relive stress.
Priests were the therapists of olden days.
Edit 2: For further clarification, here's my response to those who say "just gather like-minded people". It's much harder to do that without religion. The best definition of religion I ever heard was "an ideology that provides a comprehensive worldview". In other words, something that shapes your perspective on and understanding of every thing else. It is not easy to find such a group of people who share such basic understandings and values without the use of religion.