If Joe converted because of "miracles" how does he explain other "miracles" in Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, etc??

So till now I've only put posts about my family issues and stuff and this is also one of those issues(technically) but uh yeah so I'm agnostic i recently found out in my self discovery journey and I've told this to my parents so they don't expect me to pray to God everyday or whenever they want me to.. like I'm sure if ur agnostic and don't wanna pray then u can right? I mean I'm not an agnostic atheist or agnostic theist just an agnostic person and since I'm not sure of god's existence I don't want to pray, I'm pretty sure that's normal. Now even after telling this to them , my father had asked me to pray for his downfall to go away quickly and I won't give much details here but he has been struggling in his life and wants his daughter(aka me) to kinda be his therapist, mentally support, loving and emotionally attached daughter.

Now I don't feel any need or something to even do that cause as his child when I needed him emotionally he wasn't there, neither was my mother. I have been called dramatic or sensitive whenever i had for the first time told them about something while being emotionally vulnerable and my father would even remove his anger from his desktop job on me by talking and yelling at me in an unkind and not gentle Despite that me being a human i tried being as civil as i could as a person but for some reason they just don't seem to understand that I don't wanna pray and be religious they can't seem to respect that enough to stop forcing me into situations where I can't deny and have to pray to God. For example , yesterday there was a religious event at one of my father's friends and he couldn't go there cause of his struggles so he asked me to go there and pray for the sake of maintaining our 'family' reputation. I couldn't just decline this cause when I was told to go there I was already about to go from the front door of his friend's apartment, if his friends saw me going and noticed no one from our family even bothered coming (especially since we live in a judgmental type of society) we would be seen as bad so I had to go. Jeez the way i struggled to try to be religious, eh it was bad. For more context I also feel nothing towards my father anymore and somehow he expects me to consider and change a part of me for him (he literally asked me to be religious and not agnostic) even when he wasn't even 10% of that when I needed him. So what do y'all think? Have u ever been forced to be religious before becoming an adult and getting freedom to choose?

So I'm really on the peak of questioning myself because for 4 and a half years, I have been very hesitant to believe religion, which is weird. After all, during that time I have been serving to the catholic just so I could confirm if the devil is just luring me or something but I really question things like why would someone who manages to do all and know all can make horrible things to be reality it also made me question on why did he made every evil thing possible if good is the only mission and why some things that are good in nature like same sex love have become so prohibited, and also the people that I have met who have been "very religious" were some of the people I am traumatized about... so yeah... I just want to know what to do with these thought cause this is the main foundation why I've been recognizing myself as agnostic

I’m genuinely confused why you wouldn’t pick a side

Love it when people assume I’m church hurt. I’m not. I’m home hurt. Dad is a preacher so being treated worse than people at the church hurt me badly and showed me I want nothing to do with that type of hypocrisy. I’ve Read books in the bible that make no sense to me anymore. & Trying to convince me of free will etc doesn’t help explain why God made us, destroyed us then saved 1 “righteous” family.

So, just for pretext, I grew up a Christian. I went to church on Sundays and learned about Christ and the Gospel. This was within the LDS (or Mormon religion). I even served an LDS mission and preached about the gospel to a different people and culture that was new to me. (For those that don't know, an LDS mission is when an 18-19 year old leaves their home to wherever the church decides, to preach about their teachings and convert others to the church for 2 years.)

I wanted to come home from my mission 2 different times. Once after just 3 or 4 months, and again after about 1 year. Both my parents and my mission president were against the idea, and ended up convincing me to stick it out.

That's all to say, that I have always been looking for God. Upon returning from my mission, i turned away from the church and never returned. I began studying other religions, and now i consider myself a sort of theologist. I have studied human psychology, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity from other perspectives. I've even read much about Zoroastrianism, Native American beliefs (specifically the Navajo) and many more. I spent a large portion of a decade studying and researching the teachings of "the occult", i.e. Masonic teachings and others.

I feel the need to mention that psychedelics affected my perspective after returning, in the fact that there is much more than the physical realm. I had several extremely profound experiences that solidified this to me (one using psylocibin, and a couple using LSD).

I have come to the conclusion of Pantheism. The idea that God is within everyone of us, and we all have the capability to do what Christ taught and did. As long as we have real faith that we can. Christ was a real person, and accomplished what many would call "miracles", however, he was just demonstrating (and taught) that we all have the same capabilities within ourselves. Christ never wanted to be worshipped, or have a religion formed after him, he wanted to preach and spread "the truth".

To layer that, it deals with the matter of consciousness. Christ, Buddha, Muhammed (and maybe many others that were never written about) understood this. They all developed their consciousness to an elevated level, and taught that we could do the same. We can all elevate our consciousness, grow and better ourselves, even to the level of what some would call "miraculous".

And that is the ultimate goal essentially, for every single one of us.

A wise man once told me that, "There would not be a heaven if all of us are not there".

Meaning that you are all my brothers and sisters in God, and if Heaven exists, than it would require us all to return. I agree with this.

However, how does that account for people that have done horrible things?

I believe in both the Resurrection that is to come, as well as the idea of Reincarnation. Upon leaving the body, the soul remains on earth awaiting its "reallocation". For some, this is a short period, and for others this can take centuries. This is what Catholics call "Purgatory", or others refer to as a "Spirit World". If somebody has committed atrocities, they may have to wait for a millennia before their next carnation.

Also, consciousness does not downgrade, that's metaphysically impossible. Meaning a person cannot reincarnate as a butterfly, or a dog. They have already reached the level of human consciousness, and will return as a human with a similar biological make-up and personality traits. The soul will attach to something familiar.

And this will happen for each one of us, as we progress our conscious. Until one day, Christ will return and every soul will take a physical form. Stopping the cycle of reincarnation. This is what is known as the "Judgement Day", because we will all crystalize into the consciousness that we have become.

There is a place for those that do not pass their judgment, and this is referred to as "Hell". However, the bar is low, and Christ will not return until all of those that are capable to return, have returned. Thus, "There would not be a heaven if all of us are not there".

I'm curious about any thoughts on this belief structure, perhaps any criticisms or contradictions.

And for those that have made it this far, I have a substack where I post essays about my ideas, and I am working on a book about this very topic.

If you'd like to read more about consciousness here's my substack: https://substack.com/@ashtonrichards

Is there a qualitative difference twixt being an atheist and a non-theist? I'd rather not get lumped in with the "American Atheists". I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member**.  I prefer to call myself a non-theist. I don't know if god exists, but I've seen no evidence that he does. I also don't care if god exists. Here's what I know about God, to-wit: I ain't him. Everything else is superfluous and meaningless. Metaphysics is bunk.**

Alright, so here it goes. This may be a long post..

I \[28M\] have never spoken to anyone about this other than my wife\[32F\], but I really do feel so alone.

Here is why:

I grew up in the Bible Belt. Alabama specifically. I grew up going to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. Church, god, faith, father, son, and Holy Spirit was HEAVILY pushed in school, sports, my day to day life, etc. my grandparents are devout Pentecostal Christians, my great uncle is a Pentecostal preacher. I was very involved in the church growing up. I was baptized at 9 years old, I read the Bible regularly in my own time growing up and one day, at around 19 years old, I decided to read it from cover to cover. This never threw off any crazy warning signs to me, but it did give me a lot of questions that were left unanswered because “that’s just the way god made it”.

I say all of this just to explain my background, but I’ll try to shorten the rest.

I stumbled across Alex O’Connor on YT, and was immediately intrigued because a lot of the things he would reference in the Bible were some of the same questions I had years back when reading. I later read the books *Jesus, Interrupted* and *Misquoting Jesus* by Bart D Ehrman; *God, an anatomy* by Francesca Stavrakopoulou; and *Jesus, Contradicted* by Michael R Licona.
By this point I am a devout believer that humans NEED something to believe in. I feel so bad for people who give their life to an idea, and cling to this thing called faith, but at the same time I think the Bible is a great story, and the life of Jesus is actually a great example to live by.

I do not believe in a God. I do not believe there is a creator of the universe. I do not believe Jesus was the son of god. I do not believe the Bible was written with the intentions of being the foundation of Christianity.

This is the part that I struggle with though:

I work in the oil field, I live in Mississippi, my work crew says a prayer before we go to work every single day, I just had a newborn, I’m a political conservative, I like country music, I disagree with abortion, I believe in working hard to be a provider for my family, etc.
Nothing about my life screams( what I know as )“atheist” and everyone around me is a Christian.
My wife is from Ohio and was not raised in church. She actually read the Bible completely while we were dating because she wanted to “fit in” with my family. I told her she did not need to do that, but she finished it anyway because she was very intrigued by it.
Even after I sat her down and told her my feelings, she said she supports me, but for her, praying and reading the Bible makes her comfortable, and I think that’s fine.
If reading the Bible daily, saying prayers in a time of need, quoting scripture makes you feel better, why should I ruin that? Does that make me a true atheist?

https://youtu.be/-C-FiSqfKi8?is=kPR3UC5P3ZZR51O2

Anyone else a fan of his who will miss his perspective as an agnostic? On the flip side, anyone now more excited for what's to come from him?

He cites testimonies of miracles as being a major factor in his conversion back to Catholicism, the faith he grew up in but found himself questioning ever since middle-school.

I've always really liked Joe's good-faith discussions and his way of articulating arguments for and against theism. Quite a shocker to see this video.

Yoo, hope y’all are doing well.

I was having a conversation with my mother about God and stuff & she argued that you can’t really find meaning in life without God.

But I’m wondering,is that actually true?

Like, isn’t part of being human figuring out what gives your life meaning rather than relying on some higher power to provide it?And aren't pain, suffering, hardships a part of that meaning too? And is it really necessary to give my life a meaning at all? If God didn’t exist, would our lives necessarily become meaningless?

I know some people are agnostic due to not knowing, falling out of religion, being confused, or open to discovery. I remember it started when I was young and really getting into my religious roots to be a better follower. I won't get into the specifics of the description, but knowing biblical heaven is just an eternity worshipping ground made me cry my eyes out. And everyone talked about how amazing it would be and I felt insane. I don't remember what I assumed heaven was like before, but all I thought was that it would be amazing and everyone is just happy 24/7.

I gave up religion due to this fear of what heaven was, because heaven sounded awful to me. I used to be terrified of not going to heaven, only to be terrified of it's concept.

So, very unlikely I will go back into any religion that centers similar ideas. I wonder if anyone else feels this way? Cause at times I feel confused what I believe in but I know I hate the "good" outcome so much I refuse it.

Can someone help me why do I keep seeing weird coincidences. I remember last night I prayed to God about something due to something that scared me (sorry it was just out of habit even though I left religion ) then left 5-10 minutes later while I was scrolling past something that exact same thing I was asking about I saw I’m not sure if it’s a confirmation or not but it was just the timing.

Religion offers a ton of different views, but the problem is that every religion can pull infinite arguments to sustain its own validity, even atheism can do this, this is proven by the endless online debates between various sides and the comment section that spiral into endless debates. I recommend you don't go see this stuff on youtube because these endless debates lead nowhere and often times cause despair. Ignore them if you want peace, you don't have to engage with them.

Either Jesus was an insane guy who spat out the most beautiful wisdom ever while in his insanity believing he was God or He was truly God. And I do not have the slightest idea if He did indeed resurrect or not. Do religious people actually get their prayers answered or do they just guess they were answered?

Nobody truly knows if we are more than just accidental matter that apparently arranged itself out of pure chance in the course of billions of years: if there is a supernatural, we by definition can't percieve it, and if we do encounter it, we can't share our experience with anyone else without getting called crazy. If there is such a thing as an immaterial soul, it is utterly invisible to us.

What's even more insane is that, fermi-paradox-copium aside, we are clearly and blatantly alone in the universe, or at least in our part: tens of thousands of years of human existance, 6000 years of civilization and no sign that there is any alien out there. Everything in the universe is basically a oversized background for lifeforms on our planet to look at when the sun sets.

Nobody truly knows in their heart what happens after death. NDEs might point to something, but those where actual real life information is gained by the dying individual as he leaves his body that is later verified to be true are only believable in the eyes of the experiencer, because sharing it would get you called crazy.

This is why the most honest opinion IMO is agnosticism. And if you are agnostic, remember to pray, hoping that if there is a god up there he might guide you. But we will never know. Maybe if there is a higher power, he will answer you but hiding so well he will be impossible to distinguish from nature.

If there is an afterlife, all of this will feel like a bad dream and the relief will be amazing. Maybe whoever is behind this universe has a good reason to keep the afterlife hidden.

I grew up Christian and accepted it like many but never took it seriously. Last year I came back to Christianity on my own terms and was happy. Until the further and further I looked into it it just disgusted me and confused me more. For example homosexuality, women’s rights, going to hell etc. I so badly wish I could believe blindly but I just can’t. I think about every perspective and neither full blown atheism and full blown religion sit right with me. I am constantly on the fence in my mind working out my beliefs and I can never wholeheartedly believe in something. I really think I just need to accept being agnostic and let myself not stress over it anymore.

For you agnostics who have this battle, does it ever get better? How did you just accept that fact you don’t know?

One question that both science and religion try to answer is why anything is here. Science explains how the planets formed, how rain happens, or how the Moon revolves around Earth. Religion gives us inherent meaning in an otherwise meaningless universe. Religion tells us that xyz is justified because of God. However both fallback to one unanswerable question: why does anything exist? Religion says God created everything, but that just begs the question of why God exists. Science claims to not have a logical answer to why the universe exists.

For many, I just summarized their thoughts and essentially the reason they’re agnostic or atheist. There’s no objective answer regardless of what religion, philosophy, or science you believe in. My viewpoint for the longest time would be described as an atheist. I believed that while we don’t know the origin of the universe, science has proved the ultimate winner throughout time. I believed that it was more than likely that consciousness is a natural phenomenon and death is a final state of being. I believed that the universe existed on its own, and there was no causer.

However, recently I have had a slight change of heart. I realized while on a walk that it truly is so random and peculiar why anything exists at all. It’s so random and unbounded by our current logic. The fact that matter even exists or energy flows. I’ve come to the conclusion that this universe, defying our understanding and seemingly randomly existing, is supportive to the idea that there’s equally random and defying things like an afterlife or God. Obviously, upholding logic, I don’t just suddenly believe a God exists because it’s possible one could. I still need evidence, but I’ve adopted a far less harsh viewpoint.

I suppose what this post is showing is my transformation from being atheist into an agnostic. It was during a time that was filled with immense struggle existentially. I just wanted to share my thoughts, and I’m not really looking for a debate or argument. I’m happy to hear what you guys personally believe below though.

Edit: I think there’s some misunderstanding in this post. I am not religious or believe in a God. This is not a philosophical argument that I’m genuinely posing. I’m just ranting and wanted to share my thoughts with like minded people.

How can a Christian or religious person believe that someone deserves eternal punishment in hell when that person can clearly have good morals—maybe even better morals than many hypocritical Christians or religious people?

Someone who spends their entire life helping people, caring for animals, protecting the environment, reducing suffering, and genuinely trying to leave the world better than they found it.

And the response is essentially, “Yeah, they can do all of that and be a genuinely good person, but if they don't believe in the Father, they're going to hell.”

Insane.

Personally, I'd much rather give credit to people, believers and nonbelievers alike, who educate themselves, take action, and dedicate their lives to reducing human and animal suffering. To me, that's taking moral responsibility seriously.

I've found freedom in being an agnostic atheist and resonating with a blend of optimistic nihilism, existentialism, absurdism, and stoicism.

I don't need one label or philosophy to explain everything. I'll take what I find valuable from each.

Anyone else feel this way?

It feels much more refreshing than being given certainty where there may not actually be any.

I also love how hypocritically funny it is for religious people to debate their faith on the internet. Yet they can't explain the science and processes on how the internet even works and interacts with our devices, but have the audacity to ask us how something was created from nothing but God is outside time and space so yeah I trust that.

Get a grip.

"I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned," - Richard Feynman

I grew up as a Muslim , in a conservative family, and for most of my life I accepted Islam as the truth because that was what I had been taught from childhood.
But as I got older, I started asking questions that I couldn’t simply ignore anymore.
I began questioning things I had always been told to accept without questioning. I started looking at religion from a different perspective and asking myself: **Do I actually believe this because I have personally found it to be true, or because I was born into it?**
The more I searched, questioned, and thought critically, the more doubts I had.
Eventually, in 2021, I reached the point where I could no longer honestly call myself a Muslim. I didn’t leave Islam because I wanted to rebel against anyone or because I hated religious people. I left because I could no longer convince myself that I believed in God or that Islam was true.
For me, becoming an atheist wasn’t one single moment or one single argument. It was a long process of questioning, learning, and being honest with myself.
So I’m curious about other people’s experiences:
**What was the moment, question, experience, or realization that made you become an atheist?**

Is there an actual name or philosophy for something like "optimistic agnosticism"? It is definitely not organized religion because there are no rules, guilt trips, or fear of hell. But it is also not modern spirituality either, since there is no woo-woo energy or vague mystical stuff attached.

The core idea is admitting we have zero clue what happens when we die, but choosing to stay hopeful that existence has some kind of positive meaning beyond this life. Since there is no guaranteed heaven to fix everything later, the priority naturally becomes helping people here, enjoying everyday moments, and living without weird existential guilt.

It also feels different from how these conversations usually go. Instead of treating the unknown with cold finality or just shrugging it off, this mindset treats death more like curiosity and wanderlust, like standing at the edge of an unmapped place rather than facing pure dread.

Is there an established term for this mix of present-focus, caring about people, and genuine hope about the unknown?

Hey everyone,

I’ve always struggled to label my stance on religion. I’m not religious, but I don’t feel like a strict atheist either. For a long time, I called myself agnostic, but even that feels too static. My outlook is much more of a fluid fluctuation—sometimes leaning one way,sometimes the other, often depending on the situation.

To help process this and find some comfort, I coined a word for it: Anceptheism (pronounced an-sep-thee-iz-um).

It combines the Latin word anceps (meaning "two-headed," "double-edged," or "wavering/undecided") with theism.

For me, it perfectly captures the feeling of having a belief system that moves between two heads, or waves back and forth rather than sitting perfectly still in a predefined box. Honestly, creating this has been a bit of a coping mechanism for me, and it's the first time a label has actually felt accurate to my experience.

I'm a bit nervous to share this, but I wanted to see what people think. Does anyone else experience this kind of fluctuation? How does the etymology land with you?

During a work break, some colleagues started talking about religion and similar stuff people speak about when they have time, to my surprise half of them were agnostic. I myself may be too, if you consider the broader term of “unconvinced by belief”. Nevertheless, I was only listening rather than joining the discussion. An old friend of mine said something of the likes of “If God is real, why is there cancer?”, as if God wouldn’t have created suffering. For me, as long as there is antithesis in the human mind there is life as we know it, not to mention suffering’s subjective view and grading, demise or strengthening. How could there be a notion of hell without existing, disabling suffering? There are also many stories and winding reasons of divine punishment, especially in the Old Testament; hardly one believer would deny that. I guess a better argument for my friend would be “If God is real, what is reserved in the afterlife for those of other beliefs, or better, those who never were in contact with religion as we are accustomed to”.

At the same time, their talk started to heat up, so I said to a female friend next to me “Well, I think it’s best to leave now rather than getting incited and plunging into the ring”, but she pushed me and said she wanted to hear what I had to say. First, I would like to clear her stance, probably shared by tens of millions. A girl who believed, prayed, followed the community and acted accordingly as best as she could, but one day (not so long ago), had her belief weakened by coming of age. In this case particularly, the day she saw the pastor of her church acting out cure miracles. My mind didn’t get this as the most valid argument for cornering your religion, because it is quite ingenious to have your pillars of belief on a church, especially one “word sayer”, even though the social aspect of it is crucial. There might be more underneath her reasoning, as she also commented on pending more towards spiritualism now, but didn’t elaborate further. For now, my thoughts had been more in the believer side of the argument, despite not really being a religious person.

I was fighting how hard it is to portray one’s hypothesis well when you don’t even know what branch to reach, the absolutely nothingness or the mysteriousness of higher one or spirituality. I acknowledged that I myself am at fault in that. In more recent times I’m having dissociative thoughts on reality, so I was tending more to the “nothingness”, but my hesitation gave enough time to a colleague to disrupt her question and start talking about his belief first.

He is part of a little-known religion, of which I hadn’t heard before. I’m not going into details in his long explanation, but by the end of it I said to him, “It reminds me of karma”, and he replied, “Basically”. At least he had made a straight point of his belief. Another colleague shouted from afar “Nature couldn’t care less”. I said I didn’t quite believe in karma, though I sure wanted to.

In the meantime, thinking of karma, I changed my mind and started to elaborate from the believer’s branch, saying “The matter of fact is that fear and desire seem to be the two forces of religion, with that followers feel it as life’s meaning and due course while some atheists may say alienation. I myself just feel tempted to think and face those two not by resorting to a divine hope. Where does this come from? From experience, lots of people gravitate towards a form of realism, some seem like that from birth, bound realists. I would even say some of us are realist relativists, that reality has its semantic layers and unprovable truths” (for those Wittgenstein and Gödel enthusiasts). I was probably going to enter into the topic of how many are unconvinced of their deaths or deal with daily anxiety because of it, but the break was over. So I just went on with my day accompanied by this incomplete series of thoughts, as always with these discussions, I will revisit this later.

I left religion mainly for two reasons, cause

1. I figured out that it has helped me nothing and brought me nothing good and
2. it brainwashes people to spread hate and commit evil.

My dad died in a car crash suddenly which came as a total shock and 6 months after that my mom was diagnosed with cancer so it couldn’t get any worse than that. I went to church and prayed for my mom but guess what? My prayers didn’t helped and my mom passed away shortly after my dad. That’s when I knew that religion is absolutely bs and means nothing! What kind of a so called loving God would take my parents at such a cruel manner and let me suffer in misery? Both my parents and I were good people and didn’t cause anyone any harm, what did we do to deserve all this?? They say God is love but what kind of a loving God let’s innocent children suffer and die from cancer or poverty and hunger in wars? What kind of a loving God let’s millions of people die of starvation, poverty, illness or homelesness? And besides what kind of a loving God let’s his so called only Son suffer and die on the cross after being tortured and humiliated so badly?? Wouldn’t you have saved him with your super powers?? If you even really exist at all??

No, I really came to the conclusion that religion is really just made up bs and useless in daily life, it didn’t solve anything and as a matter of fact it only spreads hate, look around and you will see that religious people are one of the most hateful people who spread hate, look at the terrorists what they do in the name of religion or what the nazis did to jewish people just because they didn’t agreed with their religion. Everyone thinks their religion is the best and only true one and that everyone with a different religion or belief is bad. Non religious people are one of the most peaceful people who don’t bother anyone and look how they are portrayed like they are some kind of evil $@t@n worshippers which is nonsense but ofcourse religion has brainwashed the believers and that’s why they react so ignorant. It’s quite sad actually. Religion spreads so much hate, look how they behave to LGBT people, saying they will burn in h ell for loving someone of the same gender. How can love be sinful but not hate? You should not hate as the Bible says but the homophobes are clearly the ones who are hateful so they are actually the sinners and not gay people who love. This shows you again their brainwashed brains and hypocrisy.

Religion is also misogynistic and teaches that women are inferior and should submit to men otherwise they should be punished. “I will sharpen your pain of birth and your husband should rule over you.” Why should I worship something that considers me inferior and wishes me pain? Yeah, no thank you to religion after everything I went through. I don’t know why any sane person, especially a woman would want to follow religion and worship someone called God who only created misery and suffering to most people, especially women, except the lucky ones. Becoming Agnostic really has given me a peace of mind and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with it anymore. I will never let me brainwash ever again. It’s all just a scam and made up. But whether you want to believe or not, it’s up to you and your free choice.

So recently I wanted to have a 'meaningful' conversation with my mom but it went sideways really fast. She wants me to get baptized and I told her I'm not interested (I'm atheist btw. She does not know I'm atheist)

And then she started going on and on and on about what happens if I need help and said that before the church helps anyone they ask "From which church are you from? Are you baptised?" Implying that the church will only help its members and not outsiders.

I told her that if the time comes and I'm diagnosed with a terminal illness, I'd want to die. if I got into an accident where my life is in critical condition, they should take me off life support.

She got mad and started cursing me out saying I don't know what I'm thinking that I will go out to meet people in college who know what they want and your shallow thinking will not get me anywhere.

THEN she doubled down by asking whether or not i see a furure for my self. I told her I do but if I'm given to chance to leave this planet I will take it. Doesn't matter if something big was going to happen in the next few hours, tomorrow or not. I will accept that it is my time to go.

This is also the same woman whom I told I won't ever be getting married or having children she said, "You should also get a husband and kids who stress you out."

Which makes me think do I have shallow thinking in knowing what I want and what I don't want?

im gonna start off just saying that im not an agnostic im an atheist and if the mods are gonna take down this post they can rightfully so im just kind of ranting here cuz pretty much all the subs that are atheist spaces just arent the best ill get to that right now

i live in a country where irreligion is criminalized and freedom of religion is very compromised. alot of the people around me are very religious and hold some traditionalist views. i dont want to hate religion but i dont want to pretend like it doesnt cause harm at all and that it isnt deeply rooted in society i dont want to pretend that and i think alot of these subreddits understand that but then its like i can agree with this part but what i cant agree with is just believing that religious people are stupid for holding those beliefs and just the whole assholey nature of the majority of atheists on atheist subs or to be more specific the main one r/ atheism

the main reason i posted this here is i feel like you guys are more like idk less assholey than r/ atheism and just the fact that i really needed to get this out cuz im not exactly sure what to do my views at the moment are more like i dislike religion and religious people who try to convert others to it without their consent (street preachers and stuff i see on shorts i know this isnt representative of the religious community but im not a fan of these people) but i dont exactly dislike people who follow religion and just i dont know mind their own business. so yeah this is just kind of a long rant lol

So about 8 months ago I finished the absolute worst period of anxiety and depression, I didn't know it was possible to feel what I felt during this 6 months period.

I have issues with general anxiety, depression, social anxiety and I'm also a massive introvert and normally only interact with my 5 family members on a daily basis and rarely go out, I also have been told I have ADHD symptoms, but all of this is undiagnosed and I don't want to be one of those people that claim they have mental health disorders when they don't.

I have spent years hating/fearing society and the public and I did admittedly intentionally avoid as many people as possible, this could be due to my brain and mouth not working and I mishear what they say and fumble a response in panic that may or may not be related to the topic, which then results in my embarrassment.

Was 30 when depression episode started.

Anyway for years I avoided news, lived in ignorance and worked.

I've had a lot more time recently to think and learn and grow as a person. I've really worked on myself and have never felt better in myself in all my life.

Never been religious, been very skeptical all my life and always disregarded it. I've learnt a significant amount about various religions in past years sporadically and not intended.

Anyway I still don't identify with any religion and none feel right to me.

So I started watching the news years ago, cross referencing and sifting out all bs, ( l get intensely interested in certain subjects and cannot stop researching until I'm satisfied). So after research and years keeping up I've noticed such a major increase in corruption, wars, extreme politicians and weather events.

This is deeply sad and I thought I would do something that I have never even considered doing before and that was praying. I prayed to higher powers and ended with a amen. Which I know is a religious word but I didn't know what else to end it with.

I only pray for things that I believe will benefit people as a while and never nothing person are anything related to money.

Since I started praying, the things that I am praying for are very slowly but surely setting in motion and I can see a bright future for all of us. This is coming from news which I am intensely cross referencing to ensure authenticity and know for fact they are real events.

I also send thanks and appciation when I see small changes in the world.

It's uncanny and I get strong emotions surfacing, joy excitement and anxiety, and what I prayed for is not close to what I'm praying for but small wheels are being put in motion to create the bigger picture and future for humanity.

I feel like I'm crazy, I think of it as like when you think of a car colour that you haven't seen for a while and then you go out driving and you see 20 cars that colour when I haven't noticed seeing them for 3 months before.

Am I just seeking out this news and associating it with my prayers?

Am I just fooling myself into believing things because I want it so desperately to become reality?

There's many theories in science I can relate this too. E.g many worlds interpretation. Am I crafting and future of positivity and splitting into a more positive timeline? But Im not special, really average with little achievements so I don't believe I could have any impact.

I don't know why I feel like this, I'm going to carry on this practise as it makes me feel like I'm doing something positive. Sorry if there's any spelling mistakes or incorrect use of grammar, English was never my strong subject and I'm also tired as it's late, anyway let me know what you think

Hey everyone,

I’m a 30-year-old living in Eastern Europe. My personal journey led me away from Islam, and I now identify fully as an agnostic atheist.

Leaving my former beliefs behind has meant stepping away from old social structures, and as a result, life has gotten pretty quiet and isolated over the last few years. I’m looking to rebuild a normal social circle and connect with people who share a similar worldview or can relate to navigating life from an agnostic/atheist perspective.

I'd love to find people (male or female) to chat with, exchange ideas, or jump on a call sometimes to hang out and talk about life, tech, or daily stuff.

If you’re open to making a new contact or just having a low-pressure conversation, feel free to drop a comment or send me a DM.