[ SECRET POST #2232 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2232 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.


__________________________________________________



14. [broken link]


__________________________________________________



15.


__________________________________________________



16.


__________________________________________________















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 070 secrets from Secret Submission Post #319.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

I think I might be losing my faith

[(Anonymous)]

... in atheism.

I don't know. For a long time, it really felt as though I could look at the world around me and be pretty sure that there wasn't a god. "Is there a god? Still no", I could say to myself. But then one day I woke up and it didn't seem so clear anymore. I'm not sure anymore - I don't have the same easy certainty that the world is the way it is and that there's no divine being. I don't even know why this changed and I certainly don't know what it means and I have no idea how to sort it all out and it's very strange moving from a position of certainty to one of extreme doubt.

Re: I think I might be losing my faith

[(Anonymous)]

I get this. I've questioned myself a lot. I don't think we necessarily have to fight the confusion.

Re: I think I might be losing my faith

[(Anonymous)]

I've never thought about atheism as something to have faith in. Interesting.

I don't think confusion is necessarily a bad thing, but I can understand how it would be unsettling for something like this to change suddenly. Just try and remind yourself that you don't need all the answers at once; life goes on whether you have them or not.

Re: I think I might be losing my faith

[(Anonymous)]

Hoenstly life will never be hugely clear. The best you can do is just keep looking and questioning things.

Life and everything is so amazingly complicated, it's never going to be perfectly clear or certain, that's why scientists are always restudying and rechecking everything. there's rarely ever a simple answer. it can be summarised in a simple way, but the details are amazing.

what i'm getting at is it's alright to questions thing, everything! it's when you're 100% certain on how the world works that you shuold be concerned

Re: I think I might be losing my faith

[saku]

that's not a bad thing at all. at the end of the day we all have to concede that we really just don't know whether or not there's a higher power, or what it could be, if anything. there's nothing wrong with rejecting the denial of possibilities, however illogical they may seem to us.

i go through cycles personally. i'm generally a pretty staunch agnostic, but my (a)theism fluctuates every now and then. i think it's natural for a lot of people who really sit down and think about the concept as reasonably as possible.

uncertainty isn't something to be afraid of. really, it should be a sign that you're going in the right direction.

Re: I think I might be losing my faith

[(Anonymous)]

From a religious POV... I believe in the concept of a creator or a "god" or whatever you want to call it... but I have doubts. All the time. I don't know anything. I'm not certain about any of it.
Hell, I could be wrong about it all. Maybe there isn't a god.

But the doubt is useful, because it forces me to think more about what I believe and why. Doubt isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, I'm starting to think it's a pretty important part of faith.

Re: I think I might be losing my faith

[(Anonymous)]

If you think being an atheist requires faith you're doing it wrong. Atheism isn't about weighing your feelings or opinions. It has nothing to do with faith. Go be an agnostic. You'll be much happier in the long run.

Re: I think I might be losing my faith

[(Anonymous)]

...Atheism has nothing to do with faith.

If you want help, though, think of this. There are hundreds of thousands of religions that have existed since humans started creating them. Why on earth would there be that many if there was this one higher being/group of beings. And since almost all of them claim 'divine intervention', you have to wonder why a million different gods/creators decided to descend onto one little planet. They can't all be right.

I'd have more trouble believing in some all powerful being than does fuck all while the world turns to shit than to not believe in anything. There are still many mysteries about the universe, but for me, magic is just a copout explanation. :p

Re: I think I might be losing my faith

[saku]

theism and religion are two different things. doubting your atheism doesn't mean you're converting to a religion, it just means you're opening up to a theistic idea, be that as a belief (theism) or as an admission of possibility (agnosticism), or both.

the reason there are so many different concepts of deities is because we as a species don't know/understand whether or not theistic concepts apply to reality, and we make our own. that we substitute our ideas for the unknown doesn't mean anything except that we have no idea what lies beyond this. that's really what the concept of theism is all about, if you think about it. theism provides concepts of the supernatural - entities or events beyond natural law. an agnostic theist would be an individual that recognises their lack of knowledge and understanding, but also recognises the possibility - and perhaps personal belief - that there is more to the universe than what science as we know it can test and explain, in the way of a possible higher power.

so there is a pretty stark contrast between an understanding such as that, and religion. you can't compare the two, and to assume that the opposite of staunch atheism is religious nuttery is simple-minded.

also religion =/= magic ??????? i don't get why people use this insult. magic is the concept of using some form of supernatural force or technique that grants the user some degree of control. religion is the concept of a specific higher power(s) that has this control. it's really ignorant to dismiss all supernatural ideas as "magic." think what you want of them as a collective, but at least be accurate about your judgment.

Re: I think I might be losing my faith

[cassandraoftroy]

The thing is, atheism really isn't about "faith." For me, at least, it's about not having any reason to suppose the contrary. Throughout human history, people have invented gods to explain things they didn't understand -- weather, fate/chance, the origins of the universe, why bad things happen to good people. The thing is, the more humans learned about the world, the fewer things these gods were directly responsible for. We know why it rains now, and what causes earthquakes, and why the sun rises every day. We don't know everything yet, but it seems far more likely to me that the trend will continue, that things we once attributed to "God" will eventually be discovered to have wholly natural causes, rather than that this time, we've hit on the first example of real divine intervention. That's my take, at any rate.