#158

And to respond more broadly to the thread:

I grew up in a broadly non-religious household; my mum had some residual Anglicanism and took us to Sunday School a few times but we never stuck with it. My dad veers between atheist and agnostic, and that was pretty well the case for me until my teens, when I went through a phase of being “spiritual but not religious” and then had a full-on Christian conversion experience when I was 16. Spent the latter half of my teens and early twenties being a full-on charismatic-evangelical - involved in the CU at University, helped out at various massive Christian events in Manchester around the turn of the millennium, that sort of thing. Full on hands in the air/slayed in the spirit type deal. I was very annoying to be around.

Towards the latter half of my twenties, I started getting really uncomfortable with a whole pile of stuff around the church I was attending (particularly financial and “commitment” related stuff, plus the regressive social attitudes that had never sat especially comfortably with me - a very close friend who thought Jesus had cured him of his homosexuality got divorced because it turns out things really don’t work like that and the only thing he and his wife had in common was their taste in firemen; the response from the church was… not kind); I ended up going to a different church - less full-on, but still on the charismatic/evo spectrum, but it let me step back and think about stuff in a way I hadn’t had the mental space to do up until then.

Anyway, long story short, my wife and I just got so tired of the whole evangelical thing - the joke about “Jesus is coming - look busy!” is more true-to-life than you’d expect and there’s so much energy expended in looking to the next big move of God and seeking after miraculous revivals that never happen (and so the answer is always to give more, pray more, do more) - and honestly, we didn’t really believe that stuff was going to happen or, more significantly, was even the point of this whole Christianity thing anyway.

We’re now members of the local Methodist and my beliefs are… complicated and fuzzy. I’m not sure what I believe these days, but what I might or might not believe in definitely has a vaguely protestant Christian shape to it, although the closest thing to a statement of faith that I’d be prepared to sign up to is probably “I go to Greenbelt every year”.

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#159

That’s about the most Methodist thing I’ve heard in years tbf.

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#160

I guess hand on heart I’m technically an agnostic atheist but I veer towards “claiming I know” a lot of the time.

  • I’m a gnostic atheist (I know that I’m right in not believing in god(s))
  • I’m an agnostic atheist (I don’t know if I’m right in not believing in god(s))
  • I’m a gnostic theist (I believe in god(s) and I know I’m right)
  • I’m an agnostic theist (I believe in god(s) but I don’t know if I’m right or not)

0 voters

#161

Hi friends, I hope you don’t mind me sharing my experiences - I only ever seem to post about myself, but I feel a bit awkward posting about anything else! I do want to contribute more elsewhere, it’s just tricky knowing how…

I think I’ve taken perhaps the opposite route to most people - I was never raised religious (and wasn’t allowed into my local high school because I didn’t go to church), but as I’ve got older and my life’s got more confusing and difficult I’ve found some strange sense of faith emerging, particularly at times when things are very difficult. I’m not sure exactly what it is, how much of it is my brain playing tricks on me, and how much of it is just finding comfort in these ideas, even if they’re basically just extreme metaphors.

I think late capitalism is a very individualistic, empty and meaningless thing, and there is definitely some comfort in the idea of alternative, more communal structures. For me perhaps faith works in a similar way - it’s nice to feel part of something much bigger and stranger when you’re lonely, and it’s nice to think that those we love who aren’t around are still with us in some way, even if it’s just as an idea or a memory we use as a comfort going forward. Having dealt with some fairly grim and surreal events it’s also nice to apply more meaning to things than just having a weird brain.

The history of organised religion and its structures make me very uncomfortable, but I find the ritualistic aspect of worship and the sense of repetition very appealing. The concept of an afterlife as more of this is absolutely terrifying, but the idea that it’s something totally different, and again more collective, is something I think I might believe in, even if it is again just as a metaphor - the idea that we aren’t totally gone when we die, and we continue to shape the lives of others just as they shape ours. I continually go back and forth on the tangibility of these beliefs, and the fact that I believe them much more strongly when I’m at my lowest seems a bit weird - it’s hard to tell if it’s desperation or something revealing itself to me when I need it. Also I have a massive guilt complex, so religion should be right up my street.

Sorry this is a weird rambly mess, but I’ve never tried to actually structure my thoughts before, even though I think about this stuff quite a bit. I found myself in a Catholic church praying last week, and the whole experience felt hugely reassuring, even if it was just as a ritual for myself. Will I become Catholic someday? I don’t think so, as I’m fundamentally at odds with core aspects of it, but I do think I’m on some sort of path towards a more solid set of beliefs, which seems to be the opposite of what usually happens. Religion as a route to stability and being able to treat others better, rather than simply a way to get to heaven, can surely only be a good thing, and whatever people use in private to get by is fine by me.

Also somehow most of my Twitter feed has just become socialist Catholics, which is kind of brilliant.

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#162

does anyone have any good book recommendations on Buddhism? Or indeed faith in general?

#163

I am also interested in this. I have read some mindfulness books recently, some of which touch upon Buddhist ideas. Bit of a mixed bag, but has been helpful from a MH perspective.

If you google ‘best books on Buddhism’ there seems to be a split between what-it-is and how-to-do-it books.

#164

I’m reading one now (First Ecstasy, Then the Laundry) and it’s good in patches, but quite a lot of it is anecdotes from people that have only ‘had their eyes opened’ once they’ve taken a fuck load of lsd. Not really what I was looking for.

Just wanna learn more about it all without it feeling like I’m reading a textbook or being preached at.

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#165

Yeah, there’s definitely a ‘Californian’ tone to much of the stuff I’ve read, and I need to grit my teeth to get past it sometimes.

It’s also hard to find writing that describes the paradoxes at the heart of Buddhism without it sounding like a sequence of meaningless 60s clichés. Perhaps because some of the core ideas have been co-opted by people who didn’t fully understand them and thus spoilt for everyone else.

I’m thinking of things like this from Tao Te Ching:

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

I realise I am probably approaching this with the wrong mindset. Advice welcome.

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#166

Yeah this is it, I find a lot of it really helpful which I why I want to read/learn more but there’s a lot of bullshit to push past to get to to the good stuff. Or maybe it’s just a square peg in a round hole for me and I should be looking elsewhere for my wisdom and peace, don’t know.

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#167

It has definitely helped me and I think I feel a bit more peaceful as a result. The most helpful idea has been separating my identity from my thoughts. By which I mean realising that ‘I’ am not just the sum of my thoughts (which include all kinds of random shit, anxieties, desires, catastrophising etc) but that there is a ‘me’ that exists even without thought, and that I can stand back from my thoughts and recognise at least some of them as unhelpful.

Sorry, it’s really hard to describe without sounding like a smug wanker.

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#168

I feel you.

Read something last night that has really helped me, I realised that I am very much a science-based person and I believe in logic and evidence and such. But when it comes to the thoughts in my head I ignore all evidence and just go along with whatever bullshit notion my brain has come up with, and it’s normally a worst-case scenario. So I’m such a bloody scientist, I’ve gotta walk the walk.

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#169

was brought up catholic, but mainly via my schooling - my parents aren’t very religious - and always remember being interested in ‘faith’ as a concept.

did a 3 year degree on the subject (religion, philosophy and ethics) and basically came to the conclusion that most religions (definitely the main abrahamic faiths or those monotheistic religions that have a supreme entity at its core) were really tied up in nationalism, very easy to manipulate for unpleasant ends in general, don’t really stand up to any degree of philosophical enquiry and are ultimately barriers to world unity.

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#170

My parents both believed I think but neither attended church, if they’d been asked they’d probably have said they were Anglican. After my dad died in '84 my mum started going to church more regularly but kept her belief completely to herself, I think she used it as a comfort more than anything. They didn’t have me christened as they wanted to leave it up to me to decide for myself when I was older.

I attended a CofE primary school where we had to sing hymns in assembly, say the Lord’s prayer at the end of every day etc. so I just took it all as read at the time.

In my teens I started to think about it a bit more and erred on the side of the agnostic but to hedge my bets I got christened when I was 15 (just in case!), which I subsequently regretted when my atheism finally asserted itself a few years later!

Since then I’ve never seen any attraction in faith and have trouble understanding anyone believing in any of it. I did go through a militant atheist stage, rallying to the Dawkins banner and to be honest there is still some of that in me, but I strive to keep a lid on it.

#171

As ever, this has been fantastic and fascinating to read. Nice work @Scunner and DiS.

My own two pennies, and perhaps another wrinkle to the conversation:

Me and my brother were both baptised Methodist. Given neither of my parents are outwardly religious, I can only assume that we were baptised because that was social norm in the 80s?* We both attended a CoE primary school and said the Lord’s prayer and sang Morning Has Broken every week and for a good period of time attended Sunday School, of which I remember shockingly little. I think maybe we didn’t pray all that much, we just learnt about parables and stuff? It was fairly harmless and gave us a decent moral education.

As I got older I sort of tiptoed on the threshold between agnosticism and atheism - but could never fully commit to the latter. (It always felt like the height of arrogance to be able to say with such certainty that I knew everything and that there was no possibility of there being something more. My parents just didn’t discuss faith but I am certain that they would have supported me regardless of any choices I made tbh.

I have since become a teacher at a Catholic primary school and for the first couple of years really struggled to square away the (historic?) focus on sin, on guilt, on shame with the Religious Education that I was teaching - which was far more generous in spirit. Mix that with my ongoing scepticism that any of it is real too. I still find it challenging to a degree, but I also see the passion and enjoyment the children get from learning about Jesus and the moral compass that they develop alongside this. If they love it, then I’m more than happy to put aside my misgivings about the ‘realness’ of it all.

As echoed earlier in the thread, as I’ve got older I can’t let go of my cynicism but I have become envious of people of faith. Especially my colleagues, whose faith often brings them comfort while the rest of us feel hopeless that everything’s gone to shit.

*My feelings about baptising children at such a young age are perhaps a separate debate.

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#172

Sometimes wonder if I am God, I imagine most people do though

#173

Just because people say “Oh God, it’s Bam” whenever you walk into a room, it doesn’t mean…

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#174

Do you wonder if you’re God as in the creator of the known universe, or just that you are the centre of your own reality and that given that is all you can perceive, you are functionally godlike?

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#175

ah loads of ways to think about this! Sometimes feel like maybe I made everything because I am so brilliant, other times it’s more like what is “I” anyway?

#176

My initials are JCS

You know who else has the initials JCS? Jesus Christ Superstar.

#makeuthink

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#177

ftfy

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