It was slow, but I remember a major crack occurring watching Stephen Fry being interviewed when he paraphrased David Hume, paraphrasing Epicurus.
If God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not all-powerful. If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not all-good
Things start to fall apart from there. All the other Bible stuff can be explained away as being recorded by imperfect beings, but the core notion of a good God worthy of worship ends with the trilemma.
The hypocrisy of the religious. Hands down the biggest reason.
The exclusivity, in the negative sense.
The constant premise that there is something wrong with you if you don’t conform or otherwise fit the mold, or bend a knee to those thought of as superiors. Dissent is not allowed.
Pray problems away instead of actually doing something about them. Like school shootings.
The toss in all the rest of the BS like fighting other religions, wars in god’s name, god gave me (the win, the victory, saved my life but it wasn’t the surgeons, spared my house in the tornado but not the neighbor’s, my Mercedes, whatever) but not you because you’re gay or support LGBTQ, liberal, atheist, etc.
There really is so much to despise about people who using religion as a shield for their shitty beliefs and actions.
I was raised in a strict Christian sect and I took my religion very seriously and really wanted to believe for most of my life, but my brain just wasn’t really built for faith and I was a huge lover of science and so I wrestled for years trying hush the voice of reasonable doubt in my head… I prayed and prayed for more faith and never got anything in return. I tried to strengthen my faith by reading through the entire bible, which I did, twice, and that only made it worse because the gaps in reason became so much more apparent. Then during Covid lockdown a good friend of mine left the religion after several years and that gave me the strength and courage to finally say “I don’t believe, I can’t believe, and I can’t do this anymore.” It probably wouldn’t have taken me so long if I hadn’t been raised in a religion that believes in shunning and the fear of losing my family and most of my friends, but by that time a few of my friends had left and I felt I had a bit of a support net outside the religion and could walk out without the fear of losing everything.
Not a hack necessarily, but worth repeating; if you can’t afford to pay it off right away, don’t put purchases on your credit card. Don’t make the same mistakes I have in the past.
That said, if you can afford to pay it off, credit is probably a better choice than debit for most purchases. Build up your credit score and earn those reward points.
My family was secular so I didn't have religion shoved down my throat as a kid. I got curious about church when I was around 8. I went for a year or so then had an epiphany about how nonsensical it was that a loving god would consign people to hell and stopped going.
I toyed around some with occultism in my teens but have been an atheist ever since. Nothing about religion makes sense and I live in the material, rational world.
I went to church as a young kid, but never really believed and by interacting with people from different denominations and religions it became clear that the church I went to claiming to be the right one out of thousands was pretty unlikely. Was able to talk my mom out of taking me around 12 years old, and spent a couple years as agnostic until deciding that science made a lot more sense and if we could prove there was a god, he would just be part of nature and therefore not really a god as taught in church.
So basically thinking critically about it undermined the teachings. I still kept the positive messaging, but also added in the positive messaging from other religions and honestly see them all as more cultural than mystical.
I still kept the positive messaging, but also added in the positive messaging from other religions and honestly see them all as more cultural than mystical.
I kind of relate to this, but I think in certain situations people may feel some spiritual forces akin to schizophrenia, and that religion might also have served for survival purposes since different cultures developed supernatural beliefs. Also, what positive messagings do you keep? Because I also find that Christianism and Buddhism for example have important ethical teachings that I try to follow.
I never was personally. But one thing that constantly gets me is religious people knowing their church people are touching little boys and girls and they still believe in them and their higher power.
Yin yoga is good for this exact situation. I do it without getting out of bed usually (husband is a heavy sleeper). I read somewhere “vigilance is the enemy of sleep” and that makes sense. Yin yoga is designed to calm your nervous system and I find it does help knock me back out. Try to let go of unhelpful thoughts, if you think you need to remember something for the morning place a rubberband around your wrist to make you notice and remember in the morning then let it go.
If it’s so late (early?) that you might as well get up, a morning run, jog, or walk as the sun is rising is a very encouraging activity. It feels so happy to see the new day born, and vigorous exercise in particular (so if you can run instead of walk, do it) is invigorating.
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