I am Ganesh, an Indian atheist and I don’t eat beef. It’s not like that I have a religious reason to do that, but after all those years seeing cows as peaceful animals and playing and growing up with them in a village, I doubt if I ever will be able to eat beef. I wasn’t raised very religious, I didn’t go to temple everyday and read Gita every evening unlike most muslims who are somewhat serious about their religion, my family has this watered down religion (which has it’s advantages).
But yeah, not eating beef is a moral issue I deal with. I mean, I don’t care that I don’t eat beef, but the fact that I eat pork and chicken but not beef seems to me to be weird. So, is there any religious practice that you guys follow to this day?
edit: I like religious music, religious temples (Churches, Gurudwara’s, Temples & Mosques in Iran), religious paintings and art sometimes. I know for a fact that the only art you could produce is those days was indeed religious and the greatest artists needed to make something religious to be funded, that we will never know what those artists would have produced in the absence of religion, but yeah, religious art is good nonetheless.
I’d say I’m agnostic, but my parents also didn’t force religion on me, my dad is Catholic, and my mom is Thai Buddhist, and I view the Buddhist ideology to strive for to be satisfied without material as an honorable goal. I feel as if I believe that attaining that mindset really is nirvana, and I don’t think you need to be particularly religious to think that’s possible.
The way I talk to monks. In Theravada buddhism, monks are treated as a class above average humans. We had to special wording when speaking with them to be reverent, kind of like when speaking with nobles, royals and whatnot in Europe.
Still awkwardly doing that around most monks when I’m with my family, just out of respect for them. There are a few close monk friends that I can talk to normally though.
It’s relatively common for people to just spend a few years as a monk, right?
I reckon itd be weird if one day I’m picking on my little brother, then the next I feel obliged to treat him as royalty, then a couple years later I get to noogie him again.
Not years. An average person might spend a few days or weeks as a monk every few years, to sort of cleanse their Karma so to speak.
My brother just decided to be a monk for life though. It’s quite rare that people become monks for life though, especially someone as young as him. A Theravada buddhist monk’s life is more restricted than those of Mahayana traditions like in China, Japan, Korea, etc.
I still act respectful in churches and other “sacred” places, not out of any fear of the Magic Sky Wizard, but simply because other people respect them and it seems like a useful thing to encourage, even if I don’t agree with the underlying reasoning. Having a place which most of society agrees should be a quiet, comforting sanctuary is not the worst thing at all, even if the comfort is derived from extreme wishful thinking.
Also, Christmas. Christmas music is great. A Charlie Brown Christmas is one of the best holiday albums ever, though we always skip “Hark the Herald Angel Sings” 'cause it’s such a tonal shift compared to the rest of the album.
Yeah except that those places are hives of child abuse, homophobia, and science denial.
I don’t care how quiet and serene they are while plotting their next acts of bigotry.
dont forget the ubiquitous misogyny!
This is really great. I too try to give sacred places as much respect as I can, simply because I know that matters a lot to folks and helps keep the peace. Atheists could gain a lot from the concept of sacred ground and regular communing, even if not from the same obligation.
I was born and raised atheist/agnostic, never set foot in a church before 18 besides weddings. Still am, never doubted it. Maybe I believe in like Spinoza’s god or something but definitely no Abrahamic God.
Something I’ve learned is that among many other things, a certain holy quality to persecution has definitely permeated the western consciousness and it 100% has me second guessing myself often. The christliness of being persecuted, made a martyr, and suffering for your cause carries a moral quality that I have absolutely not freed myself from, even though there’s nothing automatically morally good or bad in suffering and being made a victim for fighting for a cause.
The basis of that isn’t Christianity, it is morality that existed before Christianity which Christianity adopted. Nietzsche referred to it as “slave morality” - the idea is that by redefining the behaviours of subjugated people as virtuous rather than compelled, it gives them power and agency
You might be right, but regardless of the origin, the belief was popularized in the West because of Christianity. Unless you’re suggesting that Nietzsche is merely pointing out an intrinsic feature of all human morality, but I don’t know his work well enough to decide either way on that.
But yeah, not eating beef is a moral issue I deal with. I mean, I don’t care that I don’t eat beef, but the fact that I eat pork and chicken but not beef seems to me to be weird. So, is there any religious practice that you guys follow to this day?
No more half measures walter
go vegan
go vegan
nah I love meat! Can’t live without it. I thought I would eat factory manufactured meat, but that sounds like just a bunch of fucking chemicals bunched into one. I thought they would just grow meat like in the lab, but no. Pretty misleading ads out there.
Highlighting this just because I happened to scroll down and came across this. Everything that constitutes matter is considered Chemical. The “X has lots of Chemicals while our product Y is chemical free” is a pseudo-scientific marketting tactic that Naturopaths and Ayurveds commonly use, at least from the Indian Context as I live here. Other than that, have whatever you desire. A person only has one life after all.
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I was just about to take to seriously and then I read your username :'(
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nah buddy, it was a joke. btw, Idk about unhealthy fats, it contains some well needed stuff to you know?
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I am sorry, I though you don’t eat meat. I am sorry, I misread it. my fault. But yeah, you are doing good. I am pretty sure you are missing nothing. Fish especially is very good apprently
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I went to Catholic catechism as a child and one of the few things I remember was Jesus washing other people’s feet. I like the humility of that and it inspires me to want to do acts of service
Was chatting with a young (17-ish) atheist guy recently who misremembered this as “isn’t there a bit in the bible where Christian licks a prostitute’s feet?” which truly left me with so many things I wanted to say that I could bareky say anything without laughing so much, but I managed to get out “did you think Jesus was called Christian??”
Me too, this is one of the main things that stuck with me. Honestly, idk how to think of myself except in relation to my service to community, it has really shaped my entire experience of the world.
I have had some seriously bizarre cases of deja vu. Like, recalling dreams I had years before that exactly predicted a place I would be in in the future. It has happened five or six times. It does make me question things such as consciousness and my place in the universe. It also makes me wonder if my brain is broken.
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Sometimes I listen to Gregorian chants.
About cows - there was a YTer who sucessfully connected atheism to veganism (but then didn’t). I think veganism and atheism have a lot in common structurally.
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Would you mind translating that into laypeople’s language?
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Greetings from an Ex-Hindu Atheist. I was never really into Religious Banter that much even as a small kid. But I would say the major propelling force that made me become an Atheist would be my curiosity and eagerness to study science. Science answered all those questions Religion could not and my treatment by my super religious parents helped me not to retain any religious superstitions. Their berating only gave me more strength to continue my study of science and legitimized my standings.
Religious music certainly has continued to affect me
