I was born and raised Catholic (Western Belarusian and Irish parents) and I went through a once-a-week religious class, but never felt especially attached to Christianity. I became an atheist over time and have been going through difficulties currently and I find that I still have a faith deep down. I’m interested in Islam because I read a tiny bit of the Quran as a kid out of curiosity (during the height of Islamophobia in the US, George Bush, early Obama era) and found that it wasn’t “terrifying and inhumane” as Fox News would say on the TV set at my grandparents’ condo. What resources would you point to for a beginner/ on the fence person to learn about Islam? Thank you in advance.
Maybe, but I wouldn’t say you need to believe in a god to be spiritual and strongly believing in a god is the only thing that disqualifies one from atheism. Even worldviews like deism that assume a god to exist can be practically atheist if they don’t think worshipping that god really matters.
i wouldn’t lump deists in with atheism, that does a disservice to both groups. Maybe add a third axis to the knowlidge/belief square and call it “effort”. Deists are more like nominally religious people who don’t attend services or do a good job adhering to the tenets they claim, on the opposite end as Ned Flanders. atheists of course run the gamut from anti-theistic activists who want to arrest the pope and liked soviet policy to people you couldn’t differentiate from the slacker theists without asking directly.
atheism and skepticism are separate as well, you could be a big alex jones bigfoot and aliens guy and just not believe in any gods, or you could leave a religion because you examine the clams and (lack of) evidence and make a euphoric logical conclusion. All the prominent ex-atheists i’ve heard of seem to be people who didn’t reason themselves out of their supernatural beliefs in the first place, but there are probably exceptions.
I agree. My thought was coming from listening to a podcast by an orthodox Christian preacher where he was saying that if you don’t believe god’s intervening in everyday life like the deists or even some others who are theistic on paper can be considered practical atheists. Not that this means they are atheists, but they act like them if they act like the divine and real world are separate. (This podcast was recommended by some dude on revleft for people who see the world as binary, so they could understand dialectics).
Strangely I find myself on both sides of this divide. I left Christianity because I don’t think there is some loving god consciously intervening, but I still do silly rituals like making the sign of the cross when I want a certain outcome. I see the universe as a unified thing that is in some way divine even just in the spinozan way, but in daily life I’m a practical atheist. I guess I’m agnostic, I don’t believe in a magical heaven or hell, but who knows? The Buddhists could be right, the deists could be right, the pantheists could be right, and the anti-theists could be right. All I’m certain is that I don’t trust anyone who thinks they have a god that cares about your rituals and will intervene on behalf of you. I don’t trust anyone who’s very certain about exact realities, but I could see something like Buddhism where you’re supposed to see for yourself working.
That’s not Christianity though, that’s electoralism