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[–]hkkb[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

thanks so much for your help! I'm looking for a religion for the exact reasons you describe, it is not acceptable to me that I am believing and practicing whatever I like, worshipping my own worldview. I believe it is morally wrong to not be part of a religious community to which you have to conform yourself and be challenged by, it's wrong to do every single thing exactly as it suits you, and thousands of years of knowledge and tradition probably know better than me anyway. my obstacle in righting what I believe to be the serious moral failing of cultural atheism is that I am unwilling to lie for any reason, and I'm obviously an atheist, so i've been "shopping around" I guess for a religion that would allow me membership even if I don't believe God is a conscious force or being. I don't have any religious background in my family that I can go off of, so I don't just want to arbitrarily pick a religion at random to join, it could be a cult or something for all I know. The only religion I've really heard of is Catholicism (I've also heard of Judaism, Protestant, Muslim, but I don't know what they are other than Protestants are related to Catholics) and I would be happy to become Catholic even though I think I disagree with them a lot -based on the Catholic friend I had- because what do I know about what's right anyway? However, it seems to me that true faith and belief are very important to Catholicism and they wouldn't want me to attend if they knew that I just can't get myself to believe deep down that God is conscious. I've also found that a religious group is the only source of community and shared lifestyle and values, as you said, but as religion doesn't seem to be an option for me, I thought I'd give a shot at finding a community of similarly traditional women in case there was at least some benefit

[–]WooWhoVintage 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

I am unwilling to lie for any reason, and I'm obviously an atheist, so i've been "shopping around" I guess for a religion that would allow me membership even if I don't believe God is a conscious force or being.

Joining any religion when you're an atheist is hypocrisy and you would be, therefore, a liar.

Also a religion for atheists is basically government. We believe that God created us, gave us a divine purpose and all our rights and laws come from Him. Whereas an atheist believes that we were created by chance, have no higher purpose and our rights and laws come from the threat of government's use of violent force.

[–]hkkb[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes, I was hoping there was a religion where my atheism would not be considered hypocrisy, but it doesn't look like it, thanks for the info! The government is not even close to a replacement for religion, though some people unfortunately treat politics as one. Not all atheists think exactly the same, I am an atheist and I guess I believe that scientifically speaking we are created by chance, and I believe laws are rules which are enforced on an entire community by the agreement of the community, which in the legal sense means -theoretically- they are rules enforced by the consent of the majority of the population to the rule of the authority, which enforces those rules via the implied threat of unequal access to force. Depending what exactly the divine/higher purpose you speak of is, I may or may not believe humans have one, but rights do not come from government, they are God given, and it would be frankly ridiculous for even an atheist to believe otherwise, especially to think that the government can affect rights in any way but to infringe upon them.

[–]WooWhoVintage 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The only reason why someone can be Jewish and an atheist is because They're also a nationality.

Otherwise, the very first building block of any religion, including paganism, is the belief in God or gods.