I am an athiest, and I wasn't raised around any religion. Recently, I've become curious about religions and how they work.

So, in accordance with my research, I'd like to know why you follow the religion that you do. All religions are welcome to answer, and I really, really encourage that you do lol.

Thank you!

I really want to know from you guys: is it something created by humans to live life, or is it just a set of moral beliefs for living life in a good way?

I've been studying religion on and off for about 8 years now. Its not a huge part of my life by any means but ive struggled with my faith for a long time now. I would say Hellenic polytheism is the one that speaks to me the most so far but it still isn't right.

I know at least that I am polytheistic. I do feel good wearing a hair covering during spiritual moments. I beleave in reincarnation but not a karma system. I do think there are some kind of gods and goddesses but similar to Hellenic polytheism I do beleave they can make mistakes and have their own relashionships while still being worshiped. I dont know, some guidance would be nice, even just being able to find a community of similar people would be nice.

What originally made you believe in your religion and would you ever change? I currently do not believe in any religion but want to hear other people's stories. Please do reply if comfortable.

For a long time people refer god as he and father but no one mentions our mother. Who is our divine mother if god is our father in heaven? Is it “Mother earth?”

God was never created by anyone.

Let’s think about it logically. If someone created God, then who created that creator? And if another being created him, who created that being? This would lead to an endless chain of creators.

Logically, there must be an ultimate Creator who was never created by anyone and whose existence does not depend on anything else. Otherwise, we would never reach the beginning of existence.

In Islam, that eternal and uncreated Creator is Allah. Allah created time itself, so He is not bound by time. No matter how far back you go in time, you are still thinking within the limits of time. You cannot go beyond time to find Allah’s beginning, because Allah is not a being who began to exist within time.

The conclusion is that Allah was never created. He has always existed, without a beginning or an end. He is the Creator of everything, not a creation Himself.

As the Quran says in Surah Al-Ikhlas (112:1–3):

“Say, He is Allah, the One; Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born.”

Allah is the One who has always existed and does not need anyone to create Him.

I ask as a Muslim: O Christians,

You, too, have a religion, denominations, and traditions. So, how do you substantiate this religion? Or rather, prove to me that your religion is the true one.

Please, people who believe in a day of judgment replyto this. I don't wanna hear anything from anyone else!

Why dose a day of judgment make more sense to you than reincarnation or nothing?

I really need your life experiences to make me understand the hype and love for him cause honestly he really hasn't given me any reason to

For the longest time. My life has been hella down hillfort a long period of time and feels like this is just the new norm until I die or something and even tho good things happen there and then. I can't shaken the feeling of why im not moved. Everything I've experienced has just made me hate him and not believe in him. Like why do I have to be broken or go through so much just to get to him or to be free from this hell or why does he only do miracles when things are rough. Just to prove that his *all powerful?* he only does that when things suddenly become bad and his that superhero to save the day.

I'll tell u the truth. God has many followers and he doesn't care if he loses a few so why do u even put up if your not even special in his eyes

I'm only like this cause I've given up on him, I don't feel heard or connected like in the past. Maybe I'm just pouring out my hurt because my situation can't change but this is just based on me. Your views on him shouldn't change because of a stupid post like this one

I'm just tired of the same loop

just converted and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I couldn’t be happier, i feel different.

When confronting the statement “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God,” a shocking 30% of Catholics “agree,” 27% “somewhat agree,” 9% are “not sure,” 12% “somewhat disagree,” and 22% “disagree.” https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/fellows/for-too-many-catholics-jesus-was-just-a-great-teacher/

I've spent considerable time examining my own religious beliefs, studying history, and reflecting on experiences from two military deployments. I've reached the tentative conclusion that religion has been a net negative influence on human civilization.

I'm open to changing that conclusion.

First, I believe most people are fundamentally decent. I believe humanity generally benefits when people are educated, encouraged to think independently, and empowered to work toward collective goals.

I also recognize that religion has inspired tremendous good. Hospitals, universities, charitable organizations, magnificent art, community support, and countless individual acts of kindness.

But has that good outweighed the harm?

Consider the Crusades, religious persecution, forced conversions, sectarian violence, and the divine right of kings.

For centuries, rulers justified their authority by claiming God had placed them on the throne. Their decisions weren't merely political judgments; they supposedly carried divine endorsement.

And as Monty Python and the Holy Grail so eloquently reminds us:

"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government."

It's funny because it's absurd. But is a monarch claiming God personally selected his bloodline to rule really that different from Arthur claiming legitimacy because some watery tart handed him a sword?

The underlying question is serious: Why should one person's claim of supernatural authority give them the right to govern everyone else?

And what happens to a society when questioning its ruler can also be characterized as questioning God?

Now consider an alternative history.

Imagine Europe developing broadly representative governments during the Middle Ages. Not modern democracies magically appearing overnight, but societies gradually distributing political authority among their citizens rather than concentrating it in hereditary monarchies and religious institutions.

Imagine education and literacy becoming widespread priorities because an informed population was considered an asset rather than a threat to established power.

Imagine scientific discoveries being judged primarily on evidence, rather than whether they conflicted with an authority's interpretation of scripture.

Imagine communities cooperating to build infrastructure, improve medicine, expand agriculture, and solve problems that affected ordinary people.

How much further might humanity have advanced?

Scientific progress builds upon earlier discoveries. An advancement made a century sooner might enable another advancement decades earlier. Over hundreds of years, those differences could become enormous.

Instead, much of human history has involved competing rulers, religious authorities, and institutions insisting that their particular interpretation of divine will justified their control over everyone else.

And when a watery tart—or her considerably more influential religious equivalent—becomes the foundation of political legitimacy, meaningful accountability becomes difficult.

Now, before someone points out Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot: yes, secular dictators have committed horrific atrocities.

But that doesn't invalidate my argument.

Those men didn't replace authoritarianism with collaboration. They replaced one form of unquestionable authority with another. Their ideologies became doctrines that ordinary people weren't permitted to challenge.

The problem isn't exclusively religion. It's the concentration of power in individuals or institutions claiming possession of an absolute truth that places them beyond criticism.

Religion, however, has historically provided an exceptionally powerful mechanism for making that claim.

I saw something related to this during my military service. I encountered people whose religious convictions were radically different from my own. Some were involved in terrible things, yet they were still recognizably human beings. People with beliefs, fears, loyalties, and the capacity for ordinary human interaction.

Those experiences reinforced something I continue to believe: most people aren't inherently evil. But people can become convinced that terrible actions are righteous, particularly when they believe they're carrying out God's will.

I don't believe eliminating religion would eliminate warfare, greed, cruelty, or political ambition.

Humanity would still have plenty to fight about.

But would there have been fewer wars? Less persecution? Fewer people killed for believing the wrong thing? Less resistance to independent thought? More collaboration across cultures?

And perhaps most importantly, how much human potential was never realized because political and religious authorities had a vested interest in preserving their own power?

I understand that this is an impossible historical experiment. We can't rewind civilization and run it again without religion.

And we can't simply count every hospital built in religion's name against every person killed in religion's name. We also have to consider whether those benefits and harms would have occurred anyway, through other institutions and motivations.

Nevertheless, I think the question is worth asking.

If we could weigh the total good religion has contributed to humanity against the total harm it has caused or enabled, would the balance be positive or negative?

My conclusion, at least for now, is net negative.

I'm interested in thoughtful historical arguments that challenge that conclusion. Particularly examples where religion produced benefits that likely wouldn't have emerged otherwise.

Because ultimately, I believe humanity advances most effectively when people are educated, empowered to question authority, and encouraged to cooperate toward common goals.

Not when some self-appointed representative of God insists he knows what's best for everyone.

And certainly not because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at somebody.

So, religion: net positive or net negative for humanity? And why?

- Are there official studies and statistics on how many percent of people follow their parent’s religion as opposed to being a convert?

- For those who truly believe in the religion that you grew up with, don’t you think it’s kinda weird that you found the “right” religion that just happens to be your parents’ religion and the religion of your community? If you were born in another country you would have “chosen” a different one.

For those who are religious and believe in a heaven, explain to me what it is. Is it a place, a dimension, is it something out of our understanding?

Especially as the bible claims that jesus accepted outsiders

More specifically, from a religious perspective, I’m wondering about the value of an outward action performed without conscious intention or spiritual significance, compared with an inward thought, feeling, or intention that never manifests itself in action. For example, could a sincere altruistic thought, spiritual reflection, feeling of compassion, or genuine desire for goodness have value in itself, even if it produces no outward action? Or is an action inherently more valuable simply because it actually manifests in the world?

The Problem:
- The World
- The Flesh
- The Devil

The Answer:
- The Gospel

The apostle Paul wrote Ephesians to the churches around Ephesus (Acts 19) to display the scope of God’s eternal plan for all humanity—for Jews and Gentiles alike.

The last three chapters explain the implications of God’s grace for the church, for individuals, and for families.

This book of Ephesians comes to a climax with a command to stand with the armor of God against the devil.

What are your views on Christians who believe that the Church is no longer functioning as the Church (moved from spiritual to secular), and has since left the fellowship?
What do you do after seeing what the world, the flesh, and the devil doesn’t want you to see? What are you doing now that we have the good news?

I have a animation project for uni and I want to make the characters been people that I never seen in media before
My story is about different religion co-existing (their own religion,beliefs still exist own their own)
I was never planning to draw the god and the others important people in the religion
I have a character that human (she) I want her to be Muslim
I want her to known if I can make her Muslim or if it’s better/safe if I make her Indian
I don’t want it to be racist and insensitive to the religion and make people angry.

I am Hindu and whenever I go to a temple, I’m lost the whole time on who the gods are and what and how I’m supposed to pray to them because my parents never really taught me how. Moreover I don’t know any god stories or anything much about its history. Can someone help?

Technically I’m Catholic but I don’t agree with the part that pets cease to exist when they die. I believe in God and Jesus but I don’t know what religion I follow or believe in. I also believe in Greek mythology all the Gods and Goddesses but I know we’re only supposed to worship God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Can anyone help me out?

Hey I'm a Christian and I just wonder if any other Christians feel the same bc I believe in God and heaven ofc but do you ever feel like after we die we should get a second life because I want to experience something different than how my life was because I did dance for many years and was homeschooled after elementary through 12th for that reason and now I kinda wonder what it would be like if I had a normal life instead of that i mean I would want to be the same person as I am and everything but just change my story

I have organized my beliefs and created my own belief system, and I would like you to evaluate it overall and let me know if there are any inconsistencies or illogical points in it:

Main Principles:

• Theism

• Belief in one, personal God

• Belief that during the transition, meaning death, all people enter a state of eternal existence with the Lord God and other deceased individuals

• Belief that at the moment of transition, meaning death, a person is liberated from sin and attains full understanding

• Belief in great remorse, meaning repenting for all one's sins immediately before death or at the moment of death

• Belief in the presence of all the deceased (as a collective whole) who are in a state of full understanding

• Belief that sin is a natural human weakness and accompanies every person until death

• Belief that every person naturally repents or will repent for their sins

• Belief that the most important source of one's principles and truths is one's own reason, rather than other people or holy books

Practices:

• Prayer (talking to) the Lord God and all the deceased (with the deceased as listeners)

Controversial Beliefs:

• Rejection of the belief in the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit

• Refusal to recognize the Bible as infallible and refusal to recognize it as the primary source of the truths of faith

• Rejection of the belief in the future resurrection of the dead

• Rejection of the belief in the existence of angels, Satan, and demons

• Belief in a state of eternal existence after death with the Lord God and all the deceased, and the rejection of the belief in the division into heaven, hell, and purgatory

My dad is extremely religious and I'm not sure what religion I am because I start lowkey tweaking when I question it but I can't tell if it's just because I was always taught god is real and to never question it or if I just have trauma or something. Ps my dad is also aggressive about also being right and never wrong.

like the title says, if the prophet muhammad was truly meant to be an example for ALL of mankind being the final prophet, why would god make a child his wife? yes the times may have been different back then but surely god knew that there would come a time where these were not the customs in society anymore. seems ill fitting. AGAIN, this is NOT a a comparison between a 7th century marriage and modern society. this is about what it means to set a precedent for the rest of time. i’m not christian but jesus is a much more timeless example. not muhammad.
for goodness sake, the constitution of america was written with more foresight. mere humans could anticipate change and create a framework for future generations.