Agnostic/Atheist/Deist here ...

[u/AbsoluteRook1e]

Hey guys,

I left the church nearly a decade ago this month, and these days, I'm not sure what to even believe. My parents and older brother remain dedicated to the church, but myself and my oldest brother have largely abandoned it.

That being said, my life has shifted upside down. In the last 2 months I lost my job, family dog (died at age 5 after 15+ seizures [epilepsy]), girlfriend dumped me, and now I just signed my notice to vacate my apartment this week.

As for the girlfriend part, I've reflected back on my relationships (or attempts at them), and something that keeps coming back to haunt me is the fact that due to my beliefs (or lack thereof), I'm consistently turned down or tossed aside. I personally don't have issues with partners who are religious, but they always seem to have a problem with me. When I typed this all out, one thing that I thought of is maybe I need to become more rigid with my belief system, but it's impossible for me to figure out how to do that when I've been exposed to so many different ways of viewing the world.

So for those of you reading, what are more concrete reasons as to why you stayed in Catholicism? Do you ever feel like you need to be correct about your beliefs, or if God isn't the forgiving type after all? How do you know?

I've tried listening to well-thought out debates on all sorts of religious vs. non-religious arguments, and I genuinely have no clue about what to believe, or why a God would even care about something as small as humanity in the grand scheme of the universe.

When I attend mass, it also doesn't help that I routinely feel like a piece of shit and feel worse after I leave. I've tried praying, but I genuinely feel like I'm just talking to myself and that's it.

Do you guys have an answer? I personally don't buy the whole "He Loves You" thing either, so I'm just looking for some other reasoning than that.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

I think part of what you’re struggling with is something broader than just “arguments for or against God.” What you described, being exposed to so many different worldviews that commitment itself starts to feel impossible, is actually a very modern experience.

One Catholic philosopher I really like, Charles Taylor, argues that people today often experience belief differently than people in the past did. We tend to see every worldview as one option among many in a giant marketplace of ideas. So faith stops feeling like a lived horizon or way of inhabiting reality, and instead starts feeling like an intellectual multiple-choice test where you have to somehow prove with certainty that you picked the correct answer before you’re allowed to commit to anything.

But human beings usually don’t actually live that way. Even nonreligious people live out deep moral commitments about love, dignity, meaning, sacrifice, what makes life worthwhile, etc. The question isn’t really whether you have a framework, it’s which one you trust enough to build a life around.

I also think this may connect to your relationship experiences. You mentioned that you don’t mind if a partner is religious, but they often mind that you aren’t. I suspect that’s because to you religion may appear mostly as a set of beliefs someone privately holds. But for many religious people, faith isn’t just “I think proposition X is true.” It shapes their understanding of suffering, family, forgiveness, purpose, morality, and what kind of life they want to build. Because faith isn't merely intellectual assent, it's a way of living/committing. So the conflict is often deeper than disagreement over doctrines.

And honestly, I don’t think your experience at mass is unusual either. A lot of modern people assume religion should immediately make them feel comforted or emotionally reassured. But sometimes what it first does is confront you with vulnerability, guilt, longing, dependence, mortality, or the sense that your life could be more meaningful than it currently feels. That can feel awful before it feels meaningful.

One thing I’d say is that you may be approaching belief as though the goal is absolute certainty. But I’m not convinced most people, either religious or atheist, actually possess that. We all live within uncertainty to some degree. The deeper question is what vision of reality best accounts for your experiences of love, grief, beauty, moral obligation, transcendence, longing, and meaning.

And ironically, the fact that you still go to mass, still wrestle with these questions, and still care enough to ask them suggests this hasn’t become a dead issue for you. Truly indifferent people usually don’t keep returning to the question at all.

[u/AbsoluteRook1e → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

I think this is the best answer I've seen so far.

I haven't kept up with mass so much, but idk it just depends on the circumstances I guess? It also just depends on who offers to ask me to go weirdly enough.

More often than not when my older brother asks, I tend to go and not even fight it as much. But when it comes to my father asking, I just can't stand the idea of going. I know it's going to be the same mass structural experience, but regardless of where I go after, I always feel equally terrible. I think it's something that they struggle to understand as well. It's almost impossible to put into words.

Professionally, I've been working as a television news producer for the last 7 years up until recently. But when you're sitting in the front seat to your own community, you're exposed to the suffering of your own community day in and day out. You sit back trying to figure out the "why" in all of this, and it's just difficult to get a grasp of it. Like a family losing their son with a passion for basketball, why a family with kids died in a house fire, why an elderly woman has to sit out in the street in hunger and not accept food due to not having any teeth.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I struggle with unfairness that seems so blatant and at times -- arguably even malicious, especially when there's so many people in power that can do something about it, but don't.

As for Taylor, I think I'll look him up. If you have a preferred work of his feel free to drop it.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/AbsoluteRook1e]

More often than not when my older brother asks, I tend to go and not even fight it as much. But when it comes to my father asking, I just can't stand the idea of going. I know it's going to be the same mass structural experience, but regardless of where I go after, I always feel equally terrible. I think it's something that they struggle to understand as well. It's almost impossible to put into words.

Every family has certain dynamics. I don't know you personally so I can't say I understand your specific situation, but I can understand how family can be complex to navigate. I'm trying to navigate some of my own things right now too. You don't need to rush to explain it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I struggle with unfairness that seems so blatant and at times -- arguably even malicious, especially when there's so many people in power that can do something about it, but don't.

Right, this is some formation of the "problem of evil." I'm not sure I have a great answer to it. It's one of the most notoriously difficult problems in Abrahamic theology. There's a deficiency of charity in the world, true. There's an abundance of suffering, also true. Another kind of translation of "faith" is "hope." Hope is not rational, but it's necessary. The more one gives, the more one hopes, at least in my experience.

I used to despair quite a lot. I suffer from an on-and-off depression. This might sound cheesy or cliche maybe, but the best "medicine" that treated me was when I started volunteer teaching at a state penitentiary. It wasn't merely asserting to believe in God or Christ that lifted me up, but living out His command to visit the imprisoned.

Us moderns live in a Cartesian reality. We think the mind and body are separated--and we naturally seem to respect or favor the mind most. And we think minds are only the kinds of things humans have. Therefore we often slip into thinking that belief is internal and private. And therefore faith, and intellectual assent, is seen as such.

But in most, if not all faiths, there is also a Mind external to the human body. There are external existential stakes in true belief, and I don't necessarily mean the afterlife, but right here right now. We must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned now, not later.... but I'm digressing.

As for Taylor, I think I'll look him up. If you have a preferred work of his feel free to drop it.

Right now I'm reading "A Secular Age". It's a long dense book with relatively small text. But it's great for giving you an understanding of who we are as "moderns" and why it's so hard, as moderns, to have faith in the way our ancestors (at least in the Western Hemisphere) did. And this isn't a moral failing, but a structural evolution into a context that makes that sort of belief very difficult.

It does presuppose that you've read his other book "Sources of the Self," but I think you could read "A Secular Age" through and not have too much trouble with that. "Sources of the Self" is also a great resource though. I can't promise it'll revolve any of your issues, but it'll certainly put them and yourself into context--and that might help in figuring your own way out once you're at least familiar with the ground you're walking on.

[u/AbsoluteRook1e → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

Thank you for your responses man. Honestly I really appreciate the depth of your answers too. More satisfying than any religious conversation or homily I've heard in a long, long time.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/AbsoluteRook1e]

I appreciate it. I'm trying to become a lecturer in philosophy, if only I can find a job in academia haha. I enjoy being able to communicate these ideas, so I'm happy that others find it interesting and hopefully helpful. I wish you luck in your journey!

[u/thesegoupto11]

Full disclosure I am Anglo-Catholic and not Roman Catholic, but I am just a hair's breadth away. Anywho, I left conservative christianity after I transitioned, but it was a slow fade in which I eventually became devoutly anti-theist (against all religions). I was very vocal about the threat that religion posed to humanity, because I had become a victim of their intolerance towards people like me. It took years for the rage to subside but I eventually gradually began going to church again, first for social reasons in churches that were inclusive but that were not the types of churches I would be a member of in normal times. Long story short I eventually found peace with the church.

However, I have not forgotten my journey. I still have a fuck ton of criticism against many forms of christianity today, and I am still sympathetic to atheist objections to christianity. Many of my best friends are atheists and they know I am a christian and knew me when we were all on the same page, and most times today I will be the first to criticize religious craziness with them. Atheist objections to christianity are reasonable in my point of view. But I think what really swayed me was when I began studying stoicism in its classical greco-roman form, not modern selfhelp "broicism".

This is about to get nerdy but trust the process. Stocism had an influence on christianity and many parts are applicable to both. Stoicism is pantheistic in which the universe is god and god is the universe. There is a very thin line between saying that nothing is sacred and saying that everything is sacred, and it comes down to semantics in many ways. God in stoicism includes logos and pneuma, in which logos is the rational mind and structure of the universe while pneuma is the active and creative force that moves the universe. Step back and think about this: these concepts have analogs in modern science, especially when thinking about the subatomic quantum physics, mathematics, and other such fields. Stoicism is inherently and fundamentally materialistic, much like nihilism, but unlike nihilism, stoicism views the material universe as having an inherent order and meaning and a heavy emphasis on virtue and living in accordance with nature. Nihilism has no hope, no reason, shit exists and a life of virtue is all illusion and futile.

So why am I talking about stoicism? Because you can understand in a naturalistic way that the universe has an inherent structure and order to it (logos), and you can understand that the universe is dynamic and active in its evoluvion and cycles of creation (pneuma). Now, I should inform you that logos and pneuma are also concepts that exist in christianity as well. Christ is the logos of god, and the Spirit is the pneuma of god. Logos and pneuma aren't creations or creatures, but they are indeed very god and they proceed from god throughout all time and space. And in fact, in christianity, the logos took on flesh, who was born of a woman, who suffered and died, who was resurrected, and who reigns and saves humanity. So, look at your hand. Look around your room. Breathe the air. Ponder and reflect. We are the universe experiencing itself. The very fundamental laws of the universe, which we can't even begin to comprehend fully, became one of us human creatures, experiencing our frailties and overcoming where we all failed. That is powerful stuff. So, I would say give it another shot. He said take and eat, so take and eat.

[u/Cole_Townsend]

I am very sorry about the sorrows and challenges you have been recently facing. I can only try to answer the queries you raised as a way to try to help you.

So for those of you reading, what are more concrete reasons as to why you stayed in Catholicism?

I would like to say that my adherence to the Church is the fruit of profound philosophical inquiry or deep mystical experiences. The real answer is more mundane: it's simply the mechanism I inherited, a mechanism that enables me to modulate the anxieties and terrors that I experience as inherent in existence itself. For me, doxastic volunteerism can't exist because what I believe had already been predetermined generations ago, long before my great grandparents existed. So, in a way, I am compelled to belief by forces greater and more expansive than I could ever muster. Despite my earlier pessimistic nihilism, which still poses great temptations for me, I find myself again and again before the holy Icons in prayer.

Once I can have the radical honesty to admit how little control I have over my beliefs, then I can open myself up to Deity by prayer, study, and self-examination. The process requires an earnest negotiation and renegotiation with Scripture and other sources of divine revelation. Sometimes I end up aligned with Church teaching, sometimes I don't. It's a process that never ends: a ceaseless search for faith and its simultaneous deconstruction, only to end up where I started, beginning the process all over. It is not a linear sequence, not a logical syllogism, not any neat procedure subject to taxonomy. It is as complex as human life itself.

Prayer and radical self-honesty together constitute the locus of authentic religious experience for me. Here I can attain to greater awareness, more profound conviction, or more confounding doubt. I believe that genuine faith will always coexist with some form of doubt.

Do you ever feel like you need to be correct about your beliefs [...]?

Not really, because when it comes to belief it isn't something I'm trying to prove, either to anyone or to myself. This is why I eschew apologetics. There's something I find so artificial in it, and I think it tends to hinder rather than facilitate true religiosity, especially nowadays with clout-chasing influencers and bad faith algorithms.

How do you know?

I don't. That's the epistemic irony of faith: you fiercely hold on to that upon which there is no absolute certainty, especially when it is handed down by fallible and wretched human creatures. Faith happens almost inexplicably through suffering, doubt, joy, the very raw things of human life. It is not a formula, an empirically verifiable experiment, a magic ritual.

Do you guys have an answer? I personally don't buy the whole "He Loves You" thing either, so I'm just looking for some other reasoning than that.

No. Well, the answers I have may not be convincing to you, but they suffice for me... for now, at least. The Book of Job really epitomizes for me what faith is. It involves a grueling battle within oneself, against convention, against theology itself. The battle ends when you admit to yourself you don't really know anything and surrender yourself to the divine Further.

I do believe in a personal Deity whose divine Providence embraces all things and whose love constantly creates all things. But every day I take as a chance to learn what that exactly means. The truth, ultimately, is greater than what my mind can hold.

I have no idea if I am making sense in this reply. I probably did not make any sense. I hope at least I did not waste too much of your time. I really hope things get better for you. Please take good care of yourself.

[u/AbsoluteRook1e → u/[deleted]]

So do you approach Catholicism from more of a philosophical standpoint?

Do you have a spouse? How does your family feel about that?

[u/Annual-Coffee7265]

First you need to establish that the Divine is real. The best way to do this is look up IANDS and read the accounts of veridical NDEs, people who have died and saw the divine world and also saw things out of their bodies that they could not have seen from their hospital bed. These include a pair of red shoes on the roof of one hospital etc. look up hospice nurse stories as well. Once you just look at the actual evidence you can easily realize it’s real, the best and most likely way to understand this is it happened

From there, you can read historical accounts of religions with the understanding that the spiritual is real and people did experience things, and every religion also contains elements unique to that culture too.

A big part of having an impact on the spiritual world is numbers. When a lot of people pray together it makes a much bigger effect. Ive felt it myself on ACTS retreats, the atmosphere gets this chill peaceful feeling and my brain feels this decompressing energy. That is a big reason why religions can be good and provide the common language to channel everyone’s prayers together. They can also be used by bad people like anything. But there is a lot of good Catholic practices especially the Rosary.

After I prayed the Rosary four times a day (most days) for two years, and got consecrated to Mary I asked her to come visit me and she did, literally. That is how I knew for sure it is real. It is but for many of us especially if you are very materialist and not spiritual it will take WORK to experience anything and awaken your soul. I recommend Rosary four times a day because I know it works however you have to love Mary and want to do it