Why I Can View Religion as a Beautiful Thing Even Though I'm Not Religious

[AaceN]

Previously, I wrote "Confessions of a Raised Christian" in which I received many different responses.

Click Here to View my Previous Post.

It was no shock to me in the responses I received. Many believed I was a bitter, unreal Christian when I actually claimed only to be raised a Christian, not that I was one. Many believed my points were interesting, but did not comment further. Many believed that I had dove into what the raising of Christianity was like for and shared their similar experiences. And even some expressed how they would love to talk to me about Christianity. However, today, I'd like to discuss the actual religion and not why I never accepted religion into my heart. Here's one sentence I would like people to know:

Include a caption for your image…

Religion can be very Beautiful.

I would be lying if I said my fifteen year old self that never accepted Christianity wasn't touched by faithful Christians. I remember the chills sent down my arms and the pounding of my heart when a person dedicated to sharing their story and their beliefs spoke. It was powerful to see the amount of passion. I couldn't always agree. I had the counter arguments in my head ready to go. However, I could stop, examine, and appreciate. Just because I'm not Christian doesn't mean the idea of Christianity should be revolting to me.

Why I can View Religion as Beautiful even when I'm not Religious.

1. It can be an amazing source of motivation to change.

Though raised Christian, I had doubts in the back of my mind that people made up religion to make themselves feel better in times of hardships. It would bother me that maybe my mind only made something up to put me in a state of "ignorance is bliss". However, this is me. There are many people who see things differently than me. If religion is the thing that they see differently than me and can use to grow as a person, then it is a beautiful sight. If religion is the wake up call that others had and I never had, then be it. And even a person like me can be motivated to love more by someone who became religious and changed as a human being.

2. Different mindsets are beautiful.

I believe curiosity is what makes an individual keep learning and developing. If I never wondered about the world or people around me, I wouldn't strive to add to myself; I just wouldn't care. As a person who never become religious, religion is one of my favorite topics to discuss. It shows the depths of a person. It reveals they're beliefs on how people are to be treated, their ideal way to live life, and how they think these beliefs should impact the world. Learning their different mindset adds to my own understanding of acceptance, communication, beliefs, and experiences. The effects of surrounding one's self with different mindsets, religious or other not, is beautiful. A person once told me the smartest person in the room wouldn't actually be the smartest because they would never allow themselves to be in a room where they were the smartest. They would put themselves in room to learn off of those who may be more experienced and knowledgeable.

3. It adds foundation to many people's lives.

I was raised Christian, and I'm very thankful that even through all the struggles, questioning, and self-doubt that I had. The con to raising children religious can be that if they don't accept it in their lives, temporarily they feel unacceptable just as I did at some point. However, the beauty of being raised religious was it gave me a foundation to start off with. Part of Romans 12:2 states, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." In religious viewpoint and out of religious viewpoint, this encompasses self-respect---something everyone should have. Growing up a child, this was an amazing piece of advice to not feel pressured by magazines, television shows, peers, and other pressures from this world. Part of 1 John 2:15 states. "Do not love the world or anything in the world."---another beautiful advice to learn confidence, self-respect, and wanting more than just satisfaction for one's self. Religion at any time of someone's life whether accepted or just listened upon can add wonderful foundations to everyone.

[Anonymous]

Yea but... here is the thing. There is non-Biblical evidence that Jesus existed and lots of evidence that he did indeed claim to be some sort of prophet or even the son of God. The historical proof is there, Jesus the person is not a story.
And that is the problem.
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. That makes him either: Crazy, evil, or right.
Christianity is the religion that follows either a actual insane person, a malicious scammer, or the actual Son of God. There is no middle ground. Saying, "oh I don't believe in God but that Jesus sure seemed nice and I like his teachings" is such a stupid and ill-thought-out idea. I mean, I suppose (as a Christian) I can sort of appreciate the types of atheists who are apathetic and don't hate on me actively... but its just not a good thought.

[AaceN]

Thanks for the awesome criticism. I've never thought of how my ideas could be viewed as thought by a religious person. Interesting.

[VanityFiend]

Personally, I find anyone who declares themselves an "atheist", "agnostic" or any of that bullshit, to simply be a massive attention whore. You aren't special for believing in nothing at all and quite arrogant for thinking you are the ultimate being of the universe when you're just a filthy, flawed hairless ape. Since you say you were raised Christian but turned your back on religion, that means your parents did a crap job of instilling the right values in you. Thus, I cannot blame you so much as I can blame your parents for not caring enough to make you truly understand religion and its significance.

[AaceN]

Hmm, if I was to say heaven and hell exist, I'd go to hell. I'm nowhere near the standards of someone deserving of heaven. Also, if you want to put the blame on someone, put it on me. There is not one person that can raise me to be who I am. No parent can enforce all their beliefs on someone. So, blame me.

[VanityFiend]

Religion isn't just about Heaven and Hell and where you will end up. This way of summing it up is typical of atheists who do not understand anything and your comment proves your ignorance of what Christianity, in particular, is all about. Without religion, morality is null and void. Religion provides the closest thing to a meaning for one's existence. Regardless of how far today's society has deviated, Christianity is still the number one religion in the world and will remain so, notwithstanding the amount of arrogant tools who decide to "go atheist cause it's cool". And so, you will burn in Hell with the rest of them, AaceN.

[AaceN]

The heaven and hell comment I made was my reaction to your comment about me being "quite arrogant for thinking you are the ultimate being of the universe when you're just a filthy flawless hairless ape". Trust me. I know I'm nothing at all. I know I don't deserve anything. I know the world could pass by me with batting its eye. And your comment, "Without religion, morality is null"... I explained in my article that I appreciate the foundation of morality. You don't have to be religious to be moral. Needless to say, claiming all atheists are arrogant.. I wouldn't say that. If I had a choice to be a faithful Christian and being an atheist, I would choose the Christian route. It was unsettling to me when I grew up that the religious faith is something I never had. However, if you want to argue that atheists are arrogant, you can also claim that religious people can be arrogant as well.

[VanityFiend]

You are, yet again, wrong. First off, if you're gonna quote me, make sure you don't mess up the exact wording. It's "flawed", certainly not "flawless". Secondly, your mindset makes no sense to me. You seem to truly realize your insignificance and you say that if given the choice (why you think that you do not have that choice as it stands is a mystery to me) you would be a "faithful christian) and not an atheist.

"It was unsettling to me when I grew up that the religious faith is something I never had."
This is certainly a quote I would like you to expand on, as it rings hollow to me.

"I explained in my article that I appreciate the foundation of morality. You don't have to be religious to be moral. "
You cannot appreciate a concept that is, by definition, alien to you. Someone who believes in nothing at all, is someone who has no faith in anything else but their own ego; the ego of a weak, pathetic human. As I said earlier, morality is only a concept because of religion.

[AaceN]

To explain this to you, I need to define faith first. Faith is something that many religious people in the Bible were admired for. Moses, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, etc.. these were all people claimed to be very faithful to God because they took his words and acted upon them (maybe not the first time, but eventually), believing his words were true and honest. I would argue that faith is acting upon God's words as if they were true. For me to have faith, it would have to be genuine. I can't just tell myself that the Bible is the truth. Telling myself something doesn't mean I am genuine about it. I can tell myself I am beautiful, but that doesn't mean I will believe. I didn't wake up one day to decide that "I'm going to be atheist because its cool and religion is bull". I prayed to God for help. I asked fellow Christian family members and my local pastor. I worked with Christian churches and groups. Even after all my effort, I could not convince myself the faith is true.

[AaceN]

I respectively believe you claiming faith is a choice is a false assumption. People can certainly make choices to try to find faith, but it can not be forced. Also, I'm not an atheist. I believe in God, but not religion. Christianity itself is not foreign to me. The concepts are not alien to me. I may not be able to genuinely believe the Bible, but the morals they teach are not alien to me.

[VanityFiend]

I see what you're talking about now. You assume, in all your bountiful ignorance, that to believe in God, one needs to empirically decide that God is real, after doing "tests" of sorts (as you claimed to have been praying, asking other Christians for guidance and going to church as an effort to reach God). You start from the wrong basis and reach a faulty conclusion. The correct definition of faith is that it's a strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof. If you expect to be blessed by a miracle in order to "confirm" God's existence and therefore justify and "find" your faith, then you are not understanding the most fundamental part of religion: it cannot be factually proven that God exists. That is the whole point of "faith", to believe without demanding that God prove Himself to you, a lowly being of no significance to this world. That's where atheists get it wrong. I hope you now understand that your ignorance is what blinds you.

[AaceN]

I do understand that faith is believing in something that can not be proven. In fact, I'm not an atheist. I do believe there is a chance God is real. I just don't have faith in religion. What I am saying is that not everyone can just naturally have that faith even if they try to have it. Faith is not just "let me wake up one day and decide to have faith in Christianity".

[VanityFiend]

Ah, AaceN. You've returned. It took you long enough, my dear. Welcome back.

"I do understand that faith is believing in something that can not be proven. In fact, I'm not an atheist. I do believe there is a chance God is real. I just don't have faith in religion."
See, this is where you're starting to lose me again. You claim to "believe there is a chance God is real". That does not constitute faith. If you have even a sliver of a doubt, you are a non-believer and you clearly state that you reject Christianity. So, whatever heresies you do believe in, assuming ofc that you aren't just lying here, it's definitely not the Christian God that your parents believe in.

[VanityFiend]

" What I am saying is that not everyone can just naturally have that faith even if they try to have it."
Let me help you. If you struggle to find that faith in you, it is because you're not truly devoting your time into understanding it. You are right, you don't just wake up Christian. School is usually where children learn about Christianity. You clearly were not interested then and are not interested now, in reading the Bible and studying it thoroughly. You said it yourself, you don't have faith in religion. Therefore, you will never be Christian. As much as you don't want to admit it to yourself, you are indeed as atheist as they get, AaceN. It saddens me that you are so arrogant and blind that you cannot see even that.

[AaceN]

"You were clearly not interested then"... that's not your call to make. This is what I did growing up a child: I went to church every Sunday, I volunteered on church every Wednesday, I read my Bible on church and Monday through Friday, I prayed almost every day, and I worked at a Christian camp where prayer and Bible readings were the thing that started our mornings. At some point though, I realized that as much as I wanted to be Christian, I wasn't. I would cry at nights because I was upset that my efforts still never gave me reassurance to become one. I became very sensitive to baptism. It was a subject matter that killed me at church or spoken by family members. I wanted to be baptized, but I knew I wasn't ready. I spoke to pastors asking my questions. I spoke to family members expressing my doubts. I prayed to God asking him to lead me to his will. My deciding of not having faith was not a one month process with no effort. It was a process of years.

[AaceN]

Maybe your saddened by my "arrogance", or maybe I just haven't seen what God has yet to show me. Maybe, I am stupid. But, for one thing that I know, I know that I'm saddened by your immediate judgement that atheists don't try to be religious, and they all decide to be the center of the universe. I believe in God. I still pray to God that he will show me his will to this day. I don't know what his will means, nor what it will lead to me, but I know that I still have a faith of believing in God.

[AaceN]

You're*

[VanityFiend]

@AaceN Like I said, you don't actually believe in God. You seem like a very confused person. On one hand, you claim to be trying to find your faith and on the other, you say you reject religion. You are a walking contradiction, AaceN. I see no point in further discussing this with you, until you come out and admit you are indeed atheist.

[simplyaramdomgirl]

Nice take. More people should learn to live and let live. I'm Christian but I've never shoved my religion down anyone's throat and I don't ever think I'll do that. People that shove their beliefs or lack there of onto other people lack respect and common decency. One thing is to have a discussion about religion and beliefs and another is to be bigoted and disrespect someone else's point of view.

[AaceN]

Besides myself not being Christian, I completely agree with your words 100%. :)

[ladsin]

I mean hey... More power to you. I don't see it anymore though.

I view religion as a set of ideas, typically these ideas are quite abhorrent as many of the religions embody morality that we progressed past.

On the other hand I find that people most everywhere are capable of doing beautiful things despite it. They create beautiful art, further our knowledge of the world, and can care for each other in incredible ways.

[BesrkirAstrid]

Your words are powerful although am not a christian in fact am Pagan (witch if i need to use a label) however i have also been moved by those around me who are very passionate about being pagan it really is a wonderful sight, when i decided this was for me i was unsure mostly until i connected with my Gods and it felt peaceful, calming and like i went home for the first time in my life, then i had one of them come to me in my dreams to help me get through a hard time in my life, the church does get to me but only because of the miss-information and demonetisation of my path. All i can find is love and acceptance in my life were the church fails to do so.

[FMJ_Guy]

You don't have to follow a religion, to respect their ways, or stories! I was raised Christian, and left, for my own reasons, and found something better, that is more what I need.
I still respect the stories, the foundations and values that it teaches. I don't believe all of it, but that doesn't mean that all should be cast aside!!
I take what I like, and what makes sense, from all of the Beliefs, the Teachings, the Religions, that I have known with others. I choose to believe all of these mixed things, like a Religious Buffet, and call it my own. It works for me, and comforts me.
I invite any other, open-minded, willing person to do the same, and just choose the things that work, that help, the 'gods' or 'spirits' the 'stories', all of it!!
Just another, NEW PATH, to the same 'GOD' that all seem to believe in their own ways!!

[ArrowheadSW]

A lot of people belong to a religion but don't believe every thing about it and don't take it too seriously. They like having religion in their lives and they draw meaning from it. And religious organizations often do a lot to help people in need. So I'm cool with it. I just don't like fanaticism. LOL...

[Logorithim]

Thanks for your thoughts. Everyone has to decide for themselves what role if any, religion will play in their lives- someone else should not be doing that for you. When people think for themselves, there will obviously be a range of opinions, and yours exemplifies that.

[Kaneki05]

What about the wars it has caused of the many years, and cults, terrorism, satanism, people with mental health problems doing stuff because they believe the devil told them to. Honestly don't get why anyone see's religon as good it is honestly just bad for humainty.

[ImSoSquishy]

i'm not religious, i don't hate it, and it's cool with me that people believe in their own religion or whatever they believe in. but, i just hate it when i cross paths with these jehovah witness people and they just follow me around 30+ minutes trying to talk me into believing it, it's annoying AF.

[genericname85]

religion can be beautiful, that i agree with. however this claim comes with the caveat that the person does the right cherry picking for making it beautiful... cause if you do it wrong, religion can be used to make people do terrible, terrible things if they cherry pick the right things for that from it.
also i'd argue you'd better be able to get the same results without resorting to the bible where not everything is clear and stuff contradicts itself xD

[AaceN]

Very true :)

[JailbaitGamerGirl]

My faith was the only reason I didn't kill myself in highschool. When practiced correctly, Christianity has always been a beautiful thing that saves people in all ways.

[AaceN]

That's wonderful. It's hard to say whether to raise your children religious or not because some raised turn away from it and wish they weren't raised in that way, but then there are others like you who have benefited a lot.

[IlyaTheImpaler]

Great take, I have a friend who is a devout Christian and also a prodigy with impressive track record in mathematics competitions but upon watching him closely his talents might just come from outstanding ethic and discipline. It's rare to see an 18 year old who could go through a textbook in algebraic topology just by reading it every afternoon at the same spot in the library, his Christian values probably make this an easy routine free of any suffering :))

[Jack_L_andTurn]

I like the religions that actually practice what they preach, like a little neighborhood church near me where the pastor drives an older sedan instead of some Bentley like the clowns on TV. That little church feeds the homeless several times per week, and the members volunteer their time to do so. They live their faith.

The aforementioned clownboy and clowngirl charlatans on TV, not so much

[BeHappy1985]

I view it as something that purposefully made sure that no advancement in science was made for hundreds of years. Like burning people on stakes for saying that earth isn't flat or drowning innocent women because they made delicious herbal tea so they had to be witches. Not to mention the "holy" crusades that wiped out milions. The list goes on and on. Relligion is BS.

[AaceN]

But can you really say the religion caused those faults or the people themselves? With humanity, everything can go south. We are not perfect.

[BeHappy1985]

Sure, but religion was created by people, to better control other people. Well money and power as well but lets not get into that today. It's just a tool what I'm trying to say, not all of us need it though. Pretty sure we'd be better off without it.

[dolemite68]

Well except for being the cause of most wars, slavery, persecution of gays and women, the crusades, the inquisition, terrorism, cults, mass suicide, the witch trials, genital mutilation, and the systematic rape of children... religion isn’t all that bad 🙄

[Anonymous]

I hate religions. In my opinion it’s just a tool to control masses. Like sure, believe what you want, but judging anyone by their religion is plain stupid. Also all the money and things all religions got from centuries of wars and existence is just there for nothing kept under sight of not so great leaders of spiritualism. Fuck religions, I hate the concept and the leaders too. Nothing against people.

[Hummers_Frost]

Everybody is religious so it's a moot point. Religion that you think of is no the true merits of what entails religious belief. Simply not adhering to religious concept doesn't mean you're exempt from being religious.

Not being religious is an oxymoron.

[Anonymous]

Also it controls the sheep of the country.

But seriously nice mytake. I hope there are more nice ones like it. Rarely is there not hate in one like these.

[Guanfei]

The only thing positive I see about religion is the buildings and art made in its name. Cathedrals are the most magnificent buildings made by mankind, in terms of architecture and art. Even the small church in my town is beautiful.

[AaceN]

Interesting. I never thought about the art that comes with religion.

[WildGoat]

I agree! Thank you! I don't know why some people hate Religion so much. Even if it's completely fake and God doesn't exist, it gives us hope and makes our lives more meaningful. It's a good thing regardless!

[Celtero]

Oh, I agree. I just dislike religious PEOPLE, not religion itself.

[11110000bbbb]

huh?

[Deathraider]

I don't want to be that guy, but for all the good religion has, it's got it's bad. Can't take the good without the bad.