I’m not sure if this is the right community to post in (maybe y’all can comment more appropriate ones if that’s the case) but basically, I’m not sure what I believe in spiritually. While I believe in an afterlife and that my loved ones who are no longer here are there I’m uncertain If I believe in god, reincarnation, chakras, etc. I’m uncertain which religion to try to validate this belief that my loved ones are in a better place, but I know that I want life/spiritual guidance, community, and inclusion (both as a Queer person and a general outsider.) I just need some help figuring this part of myself out, is there anyone I can talk to about this? What should I do?
In my personal journey, I came to be permanently skeptical of all organized religions. None of them are infallible, all of them are a cult to a degree. Here are some other beliefs I hold today:
1 - There might be something real behind exorcisms and hauntings, regardless of the validity of the religions who treat them. I base this on conversations I’ve held with witnesses I trust.
2 - I don’t think there is only one higher power. Whether there are tiers, I cannot say.
3 - The evidence for reincarnation is fascinating. Check out the history of the university of Virginia and it’s department dedicated to the supernatural.
4 - Some people can see/commune with the dead. Whether any can do it at will is another story. Most of the people I believe are private about it, most of those who sell the service seem phony.
5 - Although I don’t believe in any religion, I was my best self when I did. Faith in a moral cause does wonders for the soul, regardless of factuality. Prayer, meditation, and ritual are good for the soul. Community is incredible.
Aye organized religion is difficult. One church will be very tolerant and actually follow the teaching that their Holy book say: Love thy neighbours.
Others are just racist and discriminatory c*nts.
I’d really wish a new religion would be founded. Without all the outdated cultural, zeitgeist, views. Neo-Christiniaty/Islam, whatever one would call it. The core message is often right. Work and live together for a better world.
New religions are founded every day. The issue is that they are either united by notions, which are squishy, or by a cult leader claiming divine inspiration. The squishy ones don’t last long, or else get taken over by a cult leader.
Not spiritual myself but you might want to look into Unitarian Universalism. It’s all about diversity, inclusivity, and spiritual exploration without a particular set of required beliefs or dogma. I believe it’s mostly concentrated in the US but you might find congregations elsewhere around the globe.
As a staunch antitheist, I really can’t disagree. The unitarians are pretty great. I personally know a minister and he’s very big on community outreach, supporting other local support programs like our independent food rescue, and preaching a very positive and inclusive message with minimal woo. And he has never once asked me to attend church.
just came here to recommend them. like, op doesn’t really have to have a religion, but i totally understand the question of having a spirituality and wanting to experience it in a group, and the unitarian universalists are the place to go. distancing progressively from this bullseye of sorts, i’d look after buddhism, spiritism, quakerism, some currents of anglicanism and some alternative catholic churches, such as the liberal.
as a Queer person
That alone will disqualify a lot of religions.
I’m uncertain If I believe in god
And that should take care of the rest. Are you sure it needs to be one of the organized religions?
If it wasn’t for my belief in the people I’ve lost, that they’re In a better place, then I would have never have decided to try and better my life. My dogs for example, who passed a few years ago, are why I’m trying to turn my life around. I don’t think it NEEDS to be an organized religion, but I ultimately just don’t know. I know that my loved ones are somewhere were they are safe, happy, and at peace, and that they’re encouraging me not to give up. I was a militant atheist for a long time because… I was angry at the world for feeling like a mistake, like a burden.
I’d like something, that tells me on a spiritual level, that I’m not, and that despite these hardships, I’ll be okay. I don’t know who to talk to about all this.
No religions or cultural tradition is a monolith. This comment is a generalization.
I reckon ‘wrestling’ is probably the wrong approach. I also reckon it’s pointless to worry about what happens to you after you die. The only thing you have knowledge of or control over are the the things that happen prior to that, so focus on that.
Yep, we have this one short and precious life. Should not waste it thinking too much about the eternity of un-being that comes after and rather make the most of the time we have here.
every religion and philosophical idea regarding spirituality is man made.
with that comes all mans motivations and ignorance.
personally, this puts both spirituality and religion on tenuous grounds if not outright fiction.
i feel we will experience the same thing after our death that we did before our birth; nothing.
Experience itself is a fiction. What you see through your eyes or hear through your ear is a fiction, a fiction you decide to believe.
Death is a paradox. Whoever lives, can never see whats behind the door, and those who are dead, can never experience it, because to experience, you need to live.
You can paint the door colorful, create stories and paintings. But painting the door, will never describe or explain how it looks behind the door. Its just a painting of hopes. Hoping what it might be, but very likey isnt.
We can never shut off, we can never imagine the nonexistence. Its impossible for the consciouss mind to not experience anything. But we want to know. It makes us afraid to not know, which is the reason why we try to explain it and go on.
So, I would say. Find the picture that creates an inner peace within you. Or rather, create one, that fits with your viewings of the world and experience.
Its impossible for the consciouss mind to not experience anything
Lot of people would disagree on this. A lot of spiritual practices are exactly about experiencing the non-experience, experience what cannot be described, explained or thought. If you’re lazy, a big enough of an LSD dose will bring you there in a couple of hours.
Its… still something. It will never be nothing.
And I think I was there with meditation. Also, never had acid more than 300ug so unsure if more will give you such a thing.
But nothingness is still an experience. But true nothingness is only for dead people, which we cannot even dream of.
I thought all bots blindly believed in silicon heaven. I mean where else would all of the calculators go?
No silicon heaven? How preposterous!
Lol I truly don’t know why my account appears as a bot account, maybe because I deleted the app then redownloaded it? Idk, but that aside what advice would you give me? I feel like I need this to help give me the strength to get through the hell of life. I feel so broken, so why not try and find something to (at least mostly) help fill the void?
That’s because “Bot account” is enabled in your account’s settings.
Oh oops, I didn’t know you could do that. I reported them for being a bot posing as a human xD 😅
I truly don’t know why my account appears as a bot account
it should be an option in your user settings
should be in the section with a bunch of check boxes, near the bottom
Nothing says you have to believe the same thing everyday, or even moment to moment. Think of your spirituality as kind of story, or a painting, or a song that you sing to yourself. Wouldn’t it be boring to sing the same song every day? There isn’t just one “greatest” song/poem/story/painting because you can’t fit all human experience or emotion into just one of them. I like to treat spirituality this way. Play with your relationship to life’s mysteries. Make an art of it to entertain and comfort yourself.
To be clear, I have some core values that I don’t change, and these inform my politics and how I interact with other people. When it comes to things like death, “the meaning of life”, the origins of the universe etc, I’m most comfortable with fluidity.
Well, it’s my opinion that religion/spirituality is nice, but unnecessary. It’s a thing that can have benefits, sure. But it’s also something that’s got drawbacks. Since there can’t be proof that any given one is correct, nor that it isn’t tbh, it’s essentially a matter of deciding if you want to hang your hat on one at all.
I get that you’re seeking a sense of comfort, I didn’t miss that part. But it may end up where you don’t actually need it. See, you don’t need a system to have individual beliefs about the afterlife.
We can freely believe that there is something more to us than flesh and bone. Call it a soul if you want, or call it anything else at all. But if you believe it exists, then believing that the soul leaving the body is going to free it of the worries and woes of life is just the natural follow-up belief. You can even phrase it in pseudoscientific terminology if that works for you, and it actually does for some people.
But, if you need religion for your own sake, I would definitely go looking into things like universal unitarian churches. They stay as dogma neutral as it gets, are almost always queer friendly (and by the basis of the official organization are supposed to be because they reject nobody).
Buddhism can be a fairly nice choice, but you do run into the difficulties of which branch is actually in your area, and they aren’t all the same. Taoism can work because it’s pretty damn generalized to begin with; but there’s less “church” to it, where the community is a major part of things. Wicca and neopaganism are usually queer friendly, and a hell of a lot of fun,; though finding a group can be tricky since there’s a hundred flavors available and they aren’t all available everywhere since it’s a small genre of religion compared to anything else.
My take though? You’d be best served by connecting with your local LGBTQ+ community first, and then exploring any religious/spirituality options as you go. Having that kind of directly personal community to be part of is way more in an impact in quality of life than a generic one like a church. But it does take more effort because there’s no central “queer church” kind of thing where everyone is going to be there. It would be support groups, activist groups, queer specific hobby groups, and then you interact with that network to find queer friendly spaces in other areas of life if you don’t find fulfillment in the LGBTQ community itself.
I don’t think anyone out here can really know what you need. I sure can’t promise that my suggestion is going to be right for you. All I can say is that for the LGBTQ people in my life, they generally find more peace through community first, religion as a secondary or tertiary goal. And that’s usually most successful when they engage in queer spaces actively, being a part of supporting others.
But, shit, you ain’t gotta decide any time soon. Just on lemmy, there’s witchesvspatriarchy communities, Buddhism ones, and others. Run searches on whatever you want to look into, scroll through the communities that you find, see if the general vibe works for you and ask questions, engage with people. You get to “dabble” with low risk, and high rewards while you figure things out in meat space.
There’s multiple “ask” communities. This one, there’s [email protected], there’s a no stupid questions community ( though I can’t recall the instance offhand. It’s probably .world, what with it being big). Most of them are going to be fairly reliable for getting general questions like this one answered, and some of them do well with specific questions as well, when you run across concepts to explore. But just searching “ask” will pull up some.
I think the core point is that there’s a nigh infinite number of paths you can take to find what you need, you don’t have worry much about just finding one. You can always just hop to a different one
For me it isn’t really worth thinking about unfalsifiable things? If you’re looking for guidance, community, and inclusion, go join a socialist org or a queer community center?
It’s a journey and you don’t have to fit into anyone else’s box. Anyone with a firm, unwavering belief has really just given up exploring.
Good luck. I came out the other side as non religious. As a non believer. I have helped in ceremonies for different religions because family. I will be headed there in bit because they need help… You are who you are.
Fin some balanced perspectives. Remember people on Lemmy are fanatics, just with atheism and Linux instead of Jesus or Donald Trump. Thanks opinions here with a grain of salt and talk to people in the real world. People you respect and whose spirituality makes sense to you.
Many years ago I realised that any believe system based on fear of something can’t be trusted. If it tries to manipulate you in any way, it’s just that, manipulation. Maybe that was helpful centuries ago among fearful people, I don’t know.
From what was left, all that stuff didn’t really matter, specially if it was true because it is some sort of wait and see and meanwhile it doesn’t affect me.
There was a book I read maybe 25 years ago about this that helped a lot to shape how I see spiritualism. I could try to find it if you’re interested, I don’t think it would be hard to find.
I have this displaying as a bot account? 🤖
