how many of u here r religious? not 2 say tht being religious or not being religious is good or bad, but i ask bc i sort of feel like i mostly live in a quite non-religious bubble, and the few times im reminded that wow not everyone is just pretending im like huh. wacky. so im curious and asking u all bc u arent freaks who will somehow find a problem w me asking this dgfhkj

im somewhat religious. i grew up muslim and practice it occasionally, its been a kind of on-and-off thing throughout my life

ooh yeah. i always wonder how much of "religious" adherence is moreso adherence to cultural traditions, and thrown against the background of a christian country like the US it tends 2 stand out more 4 other religions. like im sure plenty atheists who still celebrate christmas and easter w their family dont rly sit there questioning whether this makes them a semi-practicing christian ykwim

for me it's varying degrees of practicing traditions/doing things out of habit, personal convictions, and pleasing the family

im not religious, i was raised catholic but have identified as atheist or agnostic for most of my life. i live in a mostly non-religious bubble too. sometimes i kind of forget that religion is a thing that people take seriously.

ahh yeah tht makes sense. keeping the family happy is so real dkghfdg

thats like my exact situation lol. i thought every kid was like me until my high school speech class when our first assignment was a speech abt ourselves and So many ppl mentioned religion as being a core part of their lives. i was stunned

I was catholic until around 13, like baptized and first communion but never made it to confirmation, but now I don't really believe in anything spiritual. I don't label it, like agnostic or atheist, I just don't care enough one way or the other. I still celebrate certain holidays, some of them because they don't exclusively belong to christianity anymore (like christmas) and others for my mom's sake cause she's still very spiritual even if she's also left the catholic church (like easter, it makes her happy if we spend it together even if she knows and accepts it doesn't have the same meaning to me as it does to her). I don't miss the spirituality part of church but I do miss the ritual of catholic mass, the repetition of it is oddly comforting. I would never return to it tho even if I was still spiritual because the church patriarchy is so so disgusting and corrupt (I don't want to say it explicitly but y'all know what I mean)

edit: also I'm in a very religious bubble, like even where I work leans pretty conservative and religious and I'm screaming inside when we do holiday lunches and some of the american higher ups lead everyone in christian prayer even though a lot of people attending (international researchers) come from non-western countries with no christian tradition lololol aaaaaahhhhhhhhh

I'm not religious, I was raised atheist (my parents were very adamantly against it), then basically forced to convert to Roman Catholicism and frequent church for years (my mother went from radically against to radically for it), then fell out of it because of complications and lack of faith, then tried paganism, also didn't work out, and now I've just concluded that I'm very "meh" about it

edit: Also I think I know more or less the same amounts of religious and nonreligious people. Like, sure, in college people are way more leaning towards atheist and agnosticism, and being in the hard sciences I've found people who are straight up Dawkins followers (he's like the guru of militant atheism that is usually stereotyped as the entire group), but like, it's quite often that I hear classmates and staff talk about praying for you or asking for a blessing, or talking about going to church or participating in some sort of religious practice. Same thing back in the US, although I felt like there were more atheists there, and even the religious people I knew were sort of different and kind of lowkey about their religion. IDK, just a thing I noticed

I am not religious. Pretty solidly in the agnostic camp I guess — I don’t see any evidence of a god, and if one exists they seem like a mega asshole tbh But I grew up in a very Christian area (Bible Belt yeehaw) and dated a very very devout Mormon* for a very long time (that was an experience) so I’m not anti religion necessarily. Religion can give ppl a sense of purpose and pull them out of dark places, so I support that part. as long as ur beliefs don’t actively hurt other ppl and you have a reason for them… but most religious ppl I encounter, that doesn’t seem to be the case unfortunately.

• devout mormon when his parents or church were looking

I’m Mormon, but I’m not one of the judgy ones. Def more open minded than the others out there

i've been an eclectic pagan for most of my life (i had a kind of 'new age' upbringing) but i feel like my beliefs have been eroding over the years and now even tho i still practice paganism, i'm not as sold on the spirituality aspect as i used to be. i still celebrate the seasons/sabbats, (which i think you can do whether or not you believe in any kind of deity or energies etc) but i think now i'm more agnostic than anything, idk

i'm terrified of being an atheist even tho it makes the most sense to me bc the idea that there's nothing after this life is really scary to me and i think that fear is the main anchor that keeps me chained to paganism 🤷🏻‍♂️

my grandmother being a jehovah's witness was one of the main things that began to shatter my beliefs tbh lawd this became such a ramble, sorry about that haha

I’m supposedly Buddhist. I’m not like super religious but I do try and pray every night so my love ones r like safe and not suffering and stuff Idk if tht sounds as like being religious?

I am a godless heathen.

Religion is not very prevalent in my culture these days, my grandma was protestant because it was more traditional back then but honestly now I don’t really know anyone religious. I had no religious upbringing but at primary school as a kid there were some vaguely christian overtones like having to sing hymns at assemblies, say grace before eating lunch and I remember having to go to church with the school for Easter, but I’m pretty sure they are not allowed to do that any more in public schools. I never believed in it and didn’t like being forced to participate. Those who are religious tend to do it pretty quietly here, unless you go far north to the very rural islands where they are a bit more old school.

My grandparents used to live in florida and I spent many summers there and I felt like one of the big culture shocks was how unflinchingly people expressed their faith (like the ‘god bless you’s, ‘one nation under god’ and thanking jesus and CHRISTIAN BILLBOARDS (/pro life wtf)). It was just extremely different from the environment I grew up in and a bit uncomfortable for me. I could talk a lot about my opinions on organised religion but I am trying to put a lid on it lol

My life is informed by Christianity bc like. I'm white in the U.S. And both sides of my family are traditionally Catholic but I've considered myself an atheist since I was a kid - I started asking my dad questions about what I was taught about Christianity when I was pretty young and his answers were formulaic and not very satisfying, and I knew the Catholic church had Some Problems.

We only went to church twice a year until my dad enrolled my brother and me in catechism when I was 13, which I agreed to bc I thought it was only fair to like, listen to what they had to say? But then when that had run its course and I said "okay cool no thanks" it turned out it wasn't really optional. He made me participate in some kind of public ceremony to join the church and it felt so awful and disrespectful to go through with that I flat-out refused to go through with being confirmed, and after a lot of really awful fighting with my dad, and saying "you can punish me but it's not going to make me believe anything," he gave up.

When I was 15 he told me completely unprompted that me not being Catholic was his "biggest regret in raising me" so. lol. I wonder what his Biggest Regret is these days.

I still get irritated by white Christians complaining about atheists being assholes bc yeah, plenty of us are dicks, but the worst of it is white atheists who are racist and haven't separated their experience with Christianized culture from the concept of religion altogether. When I annoyed my Christian friends in high school, the worst of it WAS that they got upset - and then they went literally anywhere else and had their feelings validated by their other friends, their family, the school,, whereas it was just me defending myself from "atheists should be pitied at best" BS.

fwiw I do feel conflicted about participating in christmas celebrations sometimes, lmao. won't change that that's when people are getting time off and shit though. and sometimes it is really depressing to think like, this is it, I have one shot at life and I'm never going to see the people I love who have died ever again - but I also feel an imperative to honor their memories and appreciate the fact that life is chaotic and nonsensical, but I got to have this person in my life for a while and I'm better off for it. I want the world to be better off in some small way for the fact that I was here.