I grew up in a relaxed (not religiously fanatic) Catholic family. To me it all fell apart at 14, when I dared to critically think about it. Since then I have gathered as many books of the different religions as I could. The Bible was one of the last. I see new religions rising, constructed out of parts of the old ones mixed with new things. I can’t see any really structured ones yet. I feel the old religions started pretty much the same. I don’t believe in a higher, conscious power. I don’t believe we are created, nor that we exist after we die. At most a few generations will remember us, now and then. I don’t know any of that with 100% certainty, so that would make me an agnostic atheist I guess. I think we humans need to go for wellbeing, not pure economic/capitalistic metrics. Obviously you’ll need a certain amount of money for wellbeing, but I also believe that there is more than enough to go around. It’s just that a few take it all and we let them. We must finally take science and knowledge much more seriously. Hefty fines for bribing or forcing scientists and scientists that falsify data. Science it itself doesn’t know ethics, so that has to be the human side of it: wellbeing.

Fun post! I practice Hoodoo, which is Afro-American Folk Magic. It encompasses various West African spiritual practices under one term and is based on the belief that nature — trees, plants, and similar entities — has spirits that deserve our respect. This practice involves conjuring spirits, connecting with the roots, honoring our ancestors, divination, and offering praise.

I’m still learning, but recently the women who have shaped me into who I am today chose me through their spirits (This is called mounting). I want to make them proud. While working with spirits can be a bit intimidating, my culture teaches that you cannot engage with ‘the roots’ without understanding them, and there are as many benevolent spirits as there are malevolent ones.

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 😅