Asklemmy

43948 readers

485 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

322

Atheists, is there anything religious that sticks with you to this day? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Subject6051@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

297 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I am Ganesh, an Indian atheist and I don't eat beef. It's not like that I have a religious reason to do that, but after all those years seeing cows as peaceful animals and playing and growing up with them in a village, I doubt if I ever will be able to eat beef. I wasn't raised very religious, I didn't go to temple everyday and read Gita every evening unlike most muslims who are somewhat serious about their religion, my family has this watered down religion (which has it's advantages).

But yeah, not eating beef is a moral issue I deal with. I mean, I don't care that I don't eat beef, but the fact that I eat pork and chicken but not beef seems to me to be weird. So, is there any religious practice that you guys follow to this day?

edit: I like religious music, religious temples (Churches, Gurudwara's, Temples & Mosques in Iran), religious paintings and art sometimes. I know for a fact that the only art you could produce is those days was indeed religious and the greatest artists needed to make something religious to be funded, that we will never know what those artists would have produced in the absence of religion, but yeah, religious art is good nonetheless.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm just wondering if souls exist. I hope they doesn't.

[–] Subject6051@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

that's pretty pessimistic don't you think? Are you scared of eternal life? (I kinda am)

[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm scared of reincarnation. I don't want to live a second life no matter how good it would be.

[–] elbowgrease@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

many people come back from near death experiences with insight about the whole structure of the universe. one common theme they report is that we all chose the lives we're living because these lives offered the best opportunity to learn and grow. they say we come back many times until we learn everything we need to.

so, if true, the downside is that you and I will probably be back. but, the upside is that we won't keep coming back forever and that we can curtail the number of times we will return by being the best people we can and by learning as much as we can.

[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Then I can assure you, I've learned nothing. If all of this is true, then I've chosen this life, because there MAY be good opportunities, but I'm lacking knowledge and courage to achieve them. Nevertheless, this is a failure.

[–] Nahvi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wouldn't want to be reincarnated to earth, but reincarnated to a fantasy world with magic might be nice to try out. My biggest hangup with reincarnation is not bringing the wisdom of hard learned lessons with.

[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I also would wish that, if I had confidence that I could do something useful with it.

[–] Thordros@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I appreciate the Zen Buddhist (with a mild leftist slant) take on reincarnation. Questioning the existence of reincarnation is asking the wrong question.

If it's real, you have nothing to worry about—you're living the best life you can given your material conditions. So it'll work out.

If it isn't real, you also have nothing to worry about—you're feeding trees now.

The right question is what you can do better, right here and now. The only life that matters is this one.

[–] Saeculum@hexbear.net 0 points 1 year ago

Souls existing would put a very large hole in my materialist worldview, and I don't want to have been fundamentally wrong for my entire life, especially on something that so greatly impacts my decision making and general outlook.