I'm ignostic and generally speaking opposed to religion. The idea that the secular world is missing out on some vital aspect of the human condition (not faith, but the social aspect) is not a new one.

You know what though? Religion is, first and foremost, a club. If you attend any sort of club, say, one night a week, it will give you everything you need.

I recently started going back to my tabletop role playing games club after a long hiatus. I actually went 'cause I was chasing some bit of tail, but also, partly, because I missed the regularity of meeting with people once a week to engage in a shared activity, study esoteric lore, and gain the opportunity to expand my circle of friends.

Happened to me for the silliest reason: Current 93 post 1987. And being more surrounded by spiritual people than usual.

But it'll pass--

Nope. As an agnostic, I'm part of many religions already. I compromise my values, standards, principles, better judgement, etc. all the time, just for the privilege of being friendly with the people I like. Nothing wrong with that. I may think they're "blind" or whatever, but it doesn't make me dislike them as people. Religion/blind faith is all around us. It hides in every aspect of social behavior. But this has little to do with the very narrow and specific faith in a creator.

Dude -- are you effin' JOKING?! xD Are you seriously thinking about becoming another one of the establishment's zealot-puppets?
Look, dude. There's never been a time in my life -- EVER -- where I have "doubted my non-faith." You won't catch me dead, on my knees at some altar before a pedophile priest worshiping their God! If you're truly a Religious Studies minor as you say (NICE! btw! I can tell you're a really smart, introspective, philosophical guy :-]) then you know as well as I do that all religion is BULLSHIT. As attractive as the sense of community and order fostered by religion is, I'll never let those values diminish my dedication to Athiesm -- the only thing that can battle the Capitalist Military-Industrial Complex's precious Christianity.
What I'm tryin' to say here is, don't let your human yearning for socialization and fraternity BLIND you from the truths of atheism!
Have a good day, m'man. :]
"Religions are the opiets of the masses" - Marx

What I would advise is to draw your perception of what constitutes religion out a bit. You seem to be seeing religion as something personal to be attained. You believe once you gain a working relationship with your deity, your thoughts on the subject will start to be more clear? Does that sound correct?
That is a troublesome state of mind that I find more than a few budding atheists stuck in and in my experience to start to broaden your horizons on this, is to begin viewing religion as something that is experienced so many radically different ways on this planet. What's important to keep in mind when studying religion is that it really doesn't matter whether or not parts of the religion 'really exist', because in a big way, they don't. Religion exclusively operates on the supernatural, or on a plane of existence that cannot be known by your senses. So depending on your definition of reality (very dependent on your culture's view), things that affect the supernatural are 'real'.
You can't be the champion for logic that you want to be if you only use scientific data for understanding religion, because obviously religion doesn't operate on a scientific level. Scientific data is great for proving variables about the physical world we exist in, but ever try solving an emotional problem using the scientific method?
Think of it like this: Skipping rocks across a pond makes you happy. To prove that scientifically, you would need to set conditions which are repeatable by others, get measurements of distances/skips to ratio of happiness you feel, etc. Or you could just have the fun skipping rocks, and let that experience exist as your emotional knowledge.
In the same way, spiritual knowledge is attained and to be enriched/appreciated on the spiritual plane, not through other means of acquiring knowledge.
Another example of this is if an old person complains about getting weaker, in our culture we know that the body ages and cells don't reproduce fast enough to maintain perfect health. But in the Caribbean, they -know- that the reason they get weaker is because as you get older, more people are using black magic against you in the spirit world. Which answer for aging is more correct? The truth doesn't matter, because what's important is that both answers provide important knowledge.
What is fun/enjoyable for me as a Religious Studies Major is being able to understand the wide scope of patterns that exist across many religions in how they represent their spiritual experiences, but as a materialist I don't ascribe any that I view for myself. That's the way I remain a stern atheist, but still view religion as very important. Religion is just as absolutely 'real' and 'provable' as it actually manifests itself on this planet. What matters more? That God hasn't shown himself to you, or that God has shown himself to billions of humans in one way or another in quantifiable, real ways that can be studied, and ways that affect culture at every level?
You should look at Joseph Campbell (lots of fun), Emile Durkheim, Claude Levi-Strauss, E.B. Tylor, and J.G. Frazer for in depth looks at theories explaining why religion exists across cultures & C.G. Jung offers good explanations as well but a bit less.. functional? From my experience, it's hard to stay focused on theories of religion when you're off on some alchemical venture. Good luck.

Nice copy/paste from 420chan.

Read some Marcel and Jaspers OP. Sounds like you're having an existentialist crisis and are leaning towards the theist side. If you want to believe in god, don't let the presumptuous and dogmatic atheists dissuade you.

I would rather stand alone before god than alone before nothingness.

There have been some studies which indicate that people are hardwired, in a sense, to believe in a deity. I think if you google "god box" you might find the relevant info (that's what the media dubbed it). So that might be what is causing all this for you.
As for doing something about it, obviously you understand the idea of not believing in things for no reason. You should hold on to that and ask yourself if there really is a reason to believe, since all of those other things about comradeship are completely inconsequential.
you may just have to fight that urge.

>>405
I searched for god box and couldn't find anything related other than a book suggesting that the concept of god was an coping mechanism for death, suggesting that those who weren't held back by debilitating anxiety about their future were able to somehow gain an evolutionary edge. The idea of iron age communities being overwhelmed by existentialist dread and consequently dying without reproducing is a little far fetched, although I can by no means prove his speculations false. I wish someone would tell that guy that abstracting about shit that happened thousands of years ago in order to explain current social patterns is as rationally baseless as believing in god.

I assume that the popularity of the materialistic approach to spiritual subjects is a result of the success of the scientific process with the physical world, but I think you may be doing yourself an injustice by insisting on applying cartesian doubt to ideas that are impossible to objectively think about by their very nature. By insisting on evidence of god to justify your belief, you are making the assumption that if you saw proof of god you would be able to recognize it as proof of god.. The human mind can pull some neat tricks and some of our abstractions seem to work well within certain guidelines and in specific situations, but the scope of our understanding is horrifyingly narrow. What atheism demands of theology is like asking how cold an object below absolute zero is or demanding a man alone on a life raft with a slide rule and penthouse magazine to detect a stealth destroyer beyond the horizon.

Ultimately you have to decide for yourself what you want to believe OP, it won't resolve itself by any means other than your action. Protip: Pascal's wager

>>407
http://www.skepticblog.org/2010/04/20/hardwired-for-belief-in-god/

Also, you are mistaken in claiming that the inapplicability of reason to religious questions is somehow support for religion. If reason can't answer that question then you are even less justified in belief, since that just highlights how baseless the belief is even more. It's crazy for you to think that somehow the fact that you cant think about through evidence means that it must be true.
And Pascals wager obviously fails, since nobody knows anything about Gods or universe creation so there are infinitely many possibilities as to what is actually happening. Therefore, if you believe in a particular one your chance of being right is zero.
Hence, agnosticism is a fair view, and atheism as well by Russel's teapot.

>>408

The inapplicability of reason to religion isn't proof for or against its truth. Conceding that we aren't able to think about it through evidence makes atheism a rationally baseless viewpoint as well as the teapot analogy is not applicable on a fundamental level. A hypothetical teapot would be physically verifiable, while the existence of god is scientifically unverifiable by nature, thus the analogy fails. Both positive and negative claims have the burden of proof.

Pascal's wager applies to the existence of any god whatsoever, not any specific god. In my completely subjective opinion all religions are oriented towards the same fundamental deity in the same way that all sentences can be rephrased so that they retain the same meaning but vary widely in word choice and structure. I wouldn't say that Pascal's wager is an argument for the existence of god as their are conceivably other possibilities that we can't comprehend, it is merely a suggestion in one direction, pointing towards god from neutrality.

This suggests to me a sort of theistic agnosticism, but natural human curiosity isn't satisfied with that. We are perched on the precipitous divide between god and atheistic materialism, terrified, falling respectively to either hope or despair. OP is falling towards hope.

>>412

ignore my drunken grammatical errors

SAGE has been used.

>>412
Sure both sides have equal burden of proof. Hence agnosticism. You don't need to be a theistic or an atheistic agnostic. You just have to come to terms with the fact that you don't have a way to know and that's that.
You cant say that the only reason we are justified in doubting the existence of such a teapot is that we could check it in principle. The reason we are justified in doubting is the fact that we haven't checked. The analogy does apply to God. God is also not a teapot.

>>412
>Both positive and negative claims have the burden of proof.

wow... no

I personally used to be a devout Jew, but around the age of 17 I fell out of faith. I wouldn't call myself an Atheist, as I believe in a modern form of Shamanism/Animism. My advice for you is to do some real "soul" searching, figure out your deep-seated desire for religion. Even though you may abhor the idea of religion, you may need to have a form of spirituality. As I said before, I am not religious, but I am very spiritual, kind of akin to "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein.

rude

rude

rude

He's talking to you. He must want you for something. Btw, no one is a slave. We all have free choice. Choose whatever you want, God or not. He doesn't take that away.

first god and religion are not the same. you can believe in god and not be religious.

second-ironically, you sound like s sheep-believing that being an atheist makes you a "rebel, free thinker" is a load of bs. thats very much part of the atheist movement and thats all it clings to because thats all its has. if you want to be a real free thinker, follow what you want to. but not doing what you want because of a group you are in is rather ironic that being atheism but not surprising, given the movement has become what it for so long has bitched about.

You should see if there is a Unitarian Universalist church nearby where you live. Basically, the idea behind these places is that people of all faiths or non-faiths come together to seek personal growth. Services are generally lay-led, meaning that members of the congregation contribute segments to each gathering rather than a preacher just taking over the show. My favorite service was when a classical guitar major just brought his instrument in, had everybody meditate, and then played a few songs. No mention of God, just a bunch of people trying to get that "church feel."

I should mention it did start out as a Christian Church, and some would say that it is still affiliated with Christianity, but the church I used to go to had more atheists and agnostics than Christians.

I think I know how you are feeling, OP. I am an atheist and have never had a crisis like the one you are going through, but I may have something that could help you.

Look into artistic muses. These are totally made up figures, whether defined or shapeless, that the creator can lean on in times of creative trouble. I am not sure of the psychological or philosophical grounding behind the idea, but having these muses seem to allow the user to be okay with failings and helps them along to the next project.

We are always serving someone. Its sometimes more, sometimes less apparent to whom and why.
It really depends on how you want to look at it and whether you need to feel comfortable with the things you see from those angles.

Brains are funny.

You should let your curiosity lead you. Don't let your misunderstood fear stop you from a path that feels right. Have no fear and take the plunge, don't be afraid to become another person.

I was an atheist in my teenage years and slowly wound up being quite spiritual. I grew curious and began reading about different religions and ideas. I slowly began to stitch together my own faith rather than subscribing to any one path. So now I believe in a strange mixture of Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Buddhism.

If being a rebel is so important to you, Gnosticism might be a good place to start reading. In a nutshell Gnostics believe that the Christian God of Abraham is actually a Demiurge, a false creator god. They believe humans are apsects of God's mind that have been trapped in the physical world by the Demiurge. As you can imagine Gnosticism was quickly classified as a Christian heresy and so the ideas of it were advanced mostly in secret among small circles of people. The belief system also encourages creativity and flexibility since the belief system itself was never the subject of a centralized authority. Rather, it came into being slowly through the discussion and ideas of esoteric thinkers. The Secret Book of John is the fundamental Gnostic text. Give it a read.