I’d consider myself somewhere between spiritual and maybe kind of pagan, idk
Most of my practice revolves around plants and crystals (no I’m not going to sell you some alternative medicine bullshit, science and spirituality are separate and any mixture doesn’t end well) ex catholic so I burrow small aspects from that but tend to avoid it mostly. Been looking into deities lately but haven’t integrated any into my primary stuff yet.
Also been doing stuff with a tarot deck lately, that’s been fun
I’m always a little reluctant to post about religious topics on Beehaw because there’s a pretty strong anti-christian sentiment on Lemmy in general which is, to be fair, entirely understandable.
I grew up in the “Church of Christ” and my wife and I stayed part of our CoC congregation for a long time mostly because of the support network and personal connections we had built up there, even though we had a lot of problems with evangelical theology and the increasing conservatism. A few years ago we wound up in the crosshairs of a group of deeply unpleasant people because of some comments we made in support of LGBTQ folks, and ended up spiritually homeless for a while. We eventually ended up at a local Episcopal church and while it’s been a big adjustment for us in some ways - we definitely weren’t used to high church liturgy - we’ve really come to love it there. It’s not without problems, but we feel like we’re able to wrestle with our beliefs and still have the support of the community, and we’ve made some close connections there as well.
Theologically I’m all over the place, so don’t ask me for a firm stance on anything - I’m just making this shit up as I go 😅
I am pretty staunchly antireligious in my personal life, but I try to meet folks where they are. If you are not a wild evangelical just being hateful all over, then you’re probably good by me. What you believe doesn’t really matter to me until it starts to try to interfere with my life.
I would describe myself as a pantheist: I see the existence of the universe as a whole and the multifaceted consciousness in it as divine. So science is as much a technical as a spiritual journey for me, and love / amazement / experience of the world seems the highest form of living.
I also feel that children often embody this in a very pure form, and it is only when society and social constructs kick in that we seem to forget our purpose and get all tangled up in imaginary goals and obligations.
I agree with the make shit up as you go sentiment.
Piece of advice if you want it. Organised religion tends to go south. Feel free to pursue your practice alone or with a few friends
Thanks for the thought - we did a little of this over the last few years but it wasn’t working for us. One of the more important parts of religious practice for both of us is the communal aspect, and as we live in a mid-size city in the Southern U.S. there aren’t very many opportunities outside of a church setting for strong, long-term community building. Not saying there aren’t any, but it’s difficult to build a strong network when third places have essentially disappeared. The Episcopal Church is working for us, at least right now, as a place to build those networks and practice our faith without having to compromise on moral stances that are critical to us.
Happily agnostic. Who knows what’s out there. The universe is vast, and we only see a few dimensions. We can’t fathom what is out there or anything about it. So I believe it’s equally arrogant to definitely say there is a god or to say there absolutely is not. Or many gods. Or the Q continuum.
What I will say is that the church here has both hurt society and hurt my family individually, and has been thoroughly corrupted. I don’t think of any individual as less for believing or not believing in a higher power, it brings comfort, but the organized structure has hurt too many people.
Yea.I hate organised religion with a passion. The Catholic church has caused so.much harm.
We are stardust, billion year old atoms. I’m there with ya.
Interesting discussion and question, thanks!
I am a reformed catholic. Raised as and confirmed Catholic, but as I’ve gotten older and more rebellious I’ve seen nothing but problems with religion. That is, I am not nor ever been an atheist, but I don’t believe in any man-made religion as truth. They’re shams to take your money; and some do some good for others. I am spiritual and believe in something greater than all of us. Maybe not the puppetmaster, but I feel there is some underlying driving connection and cosmic force we cannot explain or ignore. Your God? My God? Who knows, I do not claim to. But I feel it there and I feel better for it.
Ex Baptist, currently “none”.
Grew up in church via parental mandate, did all the church stuff because I was required to, but never really fully bought into it. Didn’t go to the local Christian school (thank god, ironically), but that was probably because we couldn’t afford it. Eventually moved out, went to college, and never looked back.
Was attending a family event about 8 or 9 years ago, and there was a church service afterward. I grudgingly went, and it just brought back bad memories and it finally clicked why I didn’t want to be a part of it (I knew I didn’t want to be a part of it, but never could put my finger on exactly why until I’d been out for years and saw things fresh).
ExCatholic as I said. Ya I was brainwashed hard. Education here is christian by default. Even in public schools.
I’m antireligion:
To consider antireligion instead of atheism“The harm of religion is historically evident whereas the presence or absence of gods is not. Ultimately, the continued existence of religion is predicated on the indoctrination of children and suppression of rational thought. Therefore I am against religion but not necessarily against the idea of gods. For all we know gods are computer scientists and we are in their video game.” —https://www.arscyni.cc/file/antireligion.html
I sorta agree. Organised religion is harmful. I see no harm.in individual practices tho
My mother’s a humanist, my father was a hedonist. I never grew up with any religion or spirituality, and speaking with people that did, I feel that wasn’t a bad thing.
I am atheist, which is an absence of religion. I do however have a deep appreciation for the arts and sciences, and I have a vision for what the world could and should be like. We don’t have to have homeless people. We don’t have to have hungry people or poverty. The existence of this suffering is a choice that the capitalists make in the pursuit of power.
Yea. Greed has lead to basically every issue in the world
religion doesn’t… make sense in my head. and not in an “enlightened atheist” kinda way, just in the way that it seems somehow alien. like the part of the brain that gets people into religion is missing. i know it must necessarily be different from imagination because while i can do that no problem, religion or even belief in general just… doesn’t click.
i find reading about practices and beliefs fascinating, so i will monitor this thread out of curiosity.
I get that :3 if its not something you’re exposed to lifelong, it can feel strange
oh i have been exposed to it. i was baptized, i was in the missionary scouts, and i went through confirmation (which took a year for our group, others just went on a weekend camp and it was done), because it’s what you are supposed to do. my family grew up in a time where the church was part of education, most of my acquaintances are spiritual, i live in an area where that’s basically the norm, and i… don’t understand. i know all of the details better than most, but i don’t get it. i have formulated my own interpretations of several supposedly holy texts, read about nature lore and the asatro neopagans and native american spirits and dreamtime and crystal healing and reiki and… i don’t see it.
Oh oki :3
I am leery.
Every single thing I’ve learned about it or experienced has strengthened that point of view.
I took comparative religion as a class at uni, it opened my eyes. I remain tolerant because most religious people I’ve met are not, no matter how much they preach it.
I feel like most religious teaching is for people who want to be told what to do, like a child. They want those simplistic explanations, and they want a reason to be intolerant and discriminate.
Still, I try to be tolerant.
It all seems like a cult, no matter how organized or recognized the religion is: Protestant, Catholic, or Muslim (sorry, I don’t know any Jewish folks).
I came to the same conclusion as Gene Roddenberry about 4 or 5 years ago.
I’m pretty staunchly atheist. My mom took me to a Unitarian Universalist church for a year or so when I was a kid, and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to church or religion. I mostly went for the hot chocolate because god damn, church hot chocolate just hits different. I grew up in a town in Utah that was 95% Mormon, which was pretty weird in retrospect. I thankfully wasn’t bullied or excluded for my lack of beliefs, but I did have to suffer through a few conversion attempts. My exmo partner likes to make fun of all the ridiculously incorrect things I’ve absorbed via cultural osmosis.
I do try to give myself some spiritual time. That usually entails looking at the mountains here and thinking the existential thoughts I normally don’t give myself time to think about. If I need to do that while I’m feeling sad or mopey, I’ll make some herbal tea and sip it while I’m chilling. I have a really strong aversion to many other forms of spiritualism (like crystals and some forms of meditation) due to some childhood trauma. I haven’t worked on that trauma because my approach seems to work well enough for me. I only experience existential dread when I fail to take good emotional care of myself.
Since we are not human, we have a completely different outlook on spirituality and religion.
Humans would most likely mark us ‘pagan’ and ‘witchy’ but for us these things are natural, we dance through the world with glee, enjoying all the myriad forces around us, all the ways of knowing we inherit and all that flows to and from us.
We connect to it and there is so much love, life and beautiful things, things to be understood and those that are not.
Cool :3
This one uses the witchy label and stuff. This one founds your outlook interesting :3
Hello, I would like to subscribe to your “dancing through the world with glee” newsletter. That is the ideal state, as far as I’m concerned, and most of my practice is focused on getting there.
[Joking] Step one: Be or become non human.
But seriously anybody even humans can do it, just have to have a positive outlook and care a lot and let go of what is expected of you (from most of society) and enjoy people, nature and the universe with love and kindness.
Hmm… as a Buddhist, the goal is realization that every identity, including ‘human’, is not real. So, I think your first step is pretty spot on actually. Letting go of what is expected of me is certainly my biggest challenge. I am a caregiver by nature and place a lot of pressure on myself to take care of everyone and everything around me, often to my own detriment. Thank you for the reminder.
You are welcome, hope that you take care of yourself as much as you do others and that others repay that kindness. <3
I worship cock.
Don’t we all /j
I’ve sort of run the gamut, but I spent several years as a Hare Krishna that informed most of my current practice - I’m glad I did it and learned a whole lot but there is damage to undo.
Currently I practice my own homebrew blend of Discordianism and Buddhism. Since I came from a high-demand environment, I reject the idea of spiritual authority now - no teachers, no gurus, no organizations. My practice is not beholden to anyone. I also reject the idea of dogma, which is not out of bounds in Buddhism when you consider the hundreds of sutras that directly contradict each other. Buddhists know they cannot all be true, you take what works and leave the rest.
One thing that I heard at a dharma talk once was “write your own sutra.” Start with “This I have heard. One day, the Buddha was teaching…” this and that student was there, someone asks a question, the Buddha answers. The speaker encouraged everyone who had a question they were struggling with to write a sutra, ask the Buddha, and see how he answers. I liked this approach so I’ve written several sutras myself. I write, I meditate, and I do mantra chanting as my primary day to day practice.
I have been pagan in the past, before I came to dharmic practice, so I’m open to a lot of different ideas. I do sometimes do chaos magick in the form of sigils, and I do some deity work, mostly tantric. I read tarot, but only for myself. I’m very open, generally, to all forms of sincere practice, and when pressed on my beliefs, I paraphrase Robert Anton Wilson and say “I don’t believe anything but I can imagine quite a bit.”
Edit: It’s a little stream-of-consciousness and silly, but if you’d like an insight into my practice, https://chaosbuddha.org/.
(CW: Long text ahead)
My beliefs are somehow multifaceted and complex to put into words, but the closest label would be “syncretic Luciferian”, but I’m not sure what exactly I’m believing and following nowadays, as I’ve been so distant from spiritual practices that were once a fundamental part of my daily life.
My recent spiritual journey (expand to read)
Back in January 2023, I became a member of a group/sect/initiatory school which, as paradoxical as it sounds, has both Hermetic, Luciferian and Christian concepts, in a syncretic manner.
My participation as a member was going steadily until December 2023, when I was unexpectedly “tunned into” some strong and unknown spiritual influence, beyond the group’s concepts. This spiritual force messed with me in an intense manner, when I suddenly became highly sensible to the red color, red candles, cemetery flowers and afrodisiac flowers (such as the flower whose smell is deeply intense, almost poignant at night). I soon managed to identify this spiritual force as being a feminine energy, specifically Lilith. Then I started to search and to know more about Her, finding out how misunderstood She is, how deep is Her story and journey and how She’s across several belief systems under many different titles and names. The group I was member didn’t really like the fact that I was lighting red candles, because red candles aren’t part of the group’s ritualistic practices, so I left the group and started my individual, lonely practices of a spirituality centered on the worshipping of Lilith (also because I couldn’t find any group/sect/initiatory school that worshipped Lilith AND allowed males, as Lilith is almost always a symbol/archetype to women empowerment which, understandably, doesn’t always allow men to participate, even when there’s a feminine side/pole within men).
Several months after, I had some life changes (which I’m not going to publicly detail here), part of which involves medication for mental health (depression and anxiety). All these things seem to have distanced myself from Her influence (although I’m not sure who distanced from who: did She went away from me as I was too dependent/focused/obsessed on Her energy and I’m too weird and complex to be dealt with, even by an ancient and powerful Goddess? Or did I unwillingly went away from Her as mundane/physical things started to happen around and within me? Perhaps both things happened simultaneously?) and my spirituality sort of “cooled down”, especially the practices I was engaging on.
Few months ago, I tried to delve deeper into the study of Crowley’s Thelema, as well as Chaos Magick… but that was all, I haven’t really practiced Magick.
Sometimes I feel like I should’ve attend some “terreiro de Umbanda/Kimbanda” (Umbanda and Kimbanda are two of the main Afro-Brazilian religions, and terreiros is the name of the sacred place from both religions, a place where they engage with their respective sacred spiritual practices, chants and dances, with several similarities as well as several differences between the two religions) which especially focused on the figure of the Pomba-gira (a name for powerful feminine entities within Umbanda and Kimbanda, strongly related to the Lilith’s archetype, complementary to Exu, Her masculine homologous archetype often associated with Lucifer/Satan; the Kimbanda’s relation with the Pomba-gira is very different from Umbanda, Kimbanda is more reverent towards Exu and Pomba-gira than Umbanda), or even being part of some Satanic initiatory school (I have an inexplicable strong pull on both, especially the dark/shadowy beauty and aesthetics of Satanic rituals, hooded robes, deep and strong chants to Satan; I have never attended either of them yet). Problem is that I’d be a complete stranger to them as I know nobody within Umbanda, Kimbanda or Satanism (I’m kind of a solitary person without friends, it’s my personality).
