I'm not religious either, and I haven't been for most of my life. I consider myself an atheist, but even putting a label to it feels weird, because it's... nothing. Like you say in this post, I just feel nothing spiritual or religious. I don't like it or dislike it, and I no longer harbor any ill will towards religion in general. I see religion as something that's played a big role in the shaping of the world, and still does, in ways that are good and ways that are bad
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We found a little toy football that had been tossed into our yard with a swastika and "Jews Suxor" written on it.
Only in Texas would you find hate speech inscribed on and conveyed via a toy football. (Okay, only in the South, at least.) *is amused*
And, Julie? What you've just written? I feel the *exact* same way. I've done church at various times in my life, FCA in high school, youth groups and small-group Bible studies, religion classes (at university, so not Bible classes, but actual academic, Religious Studies ones), and....nada. I'm interested in religion from an academic standpoint - from a textual one, and a cultural one - but that's about as far as it goes.
You've described this in the way I have so very many times. Religion, or perhaps more accurately, belief, seems to be such a comfort to people. But I don't have it. I went to church until I was 10, did CCD, and then went to a Catholic university for undergrad (Jesuit, so the liberal Catholics, dontcha know), and even though I had to study Theology as part of my requirements for graduation, all it did was reinforce that religion is something to be studied - not something to believe in.
Like you, I think there's something out there - but even with all of my arrogance, I'm not about to try and guess that I of all people could be right about what that SOMETHING is.
For the most part, however, I've thought of all of this when attempting to respond to yet another person who was trying to push me into believing in their god... when I can't. I don't work that way. That's just the way it is.
I feel the same way about *not* feeling anything re: God. That's probably why it's easy for me to be a Unitarian Universalist. It allows me to think about ethics etc. (and get some good ethical grounding for my child) without having to embrace any particular dogma, which is a good thing since dogma makes me run away screaming. (I say this as someone who spent 13 years in Catholic school, plus every Sunday at Mass until I was 18).
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Only in Texas would you find hate speech inscribed on and conveyed via a toy football. (Okay, only in the South, at least.) *is amused*
And, Julie? What you've just written? I feel the *exact* same way. I've done church at various times in my life, FCA in high school, youth groups and small-group Bible studies, religion classes (at university, so not Bible classes, but actual academic, Religious Studies ones), and....nada. I'm interested in religion from an academic standpoint - from a textual one, and a cultural one - but that's about as far as it goes.
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Like you, I think there's something out there - but even with all of my arrogance, I'm not about to try and guess that I of all people could be right about what that SOMETHING is.
For the most part, however, I've thought of all of this when attempting to respond to yet another person who was trying to push me into believing in their god... when I can't. I don't work that way. That's just the way it is.
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