I have a soft spot for the topic of people who are dual faith. It’s weird, you know. If you’re an atheist, you get a thumbs up from me. If you’re religious with one faith, you get a raised eyebrow from me. And if you are dual faith, you get two thumbs up from me. It just feels like you’re more open-minded if you are more than one faith.
I consider myself an atheist but the faith I identify the most with is Haudenosaunee Long House traditions. I’d say I loosely follow that religion but it’s incredibly niche and regional and I now live on the west coast so I mostly just feel thankful for shit which is like 90% of the beliefs anyways - I’d consider myself agnostic because I have no genuine belief that the Creator nor his brother exist or that there are sky people, a strawberry road or an afterlife…
I actually consider myself an atheist because I was raised in Boston among rapey catholic priests and unless the metaphysical universe actually is a disinterested God like in the Long House tradition then, if God exists, they’re a fucking asshole and can eat my ass. I find comfort in the universe being uncaring because if it does care the immense cruelty of the world means that God is a sadistic asshole.
But… yea, I’m most closely aligned with Long House traditions where the Creator made a bunch of sweet (rivers flowing both ways? Yes please) stuff, his evil brother fucked it all up and they’ve all fucked off somewhere and left just us, the plants and animals - praying is useless because nobody is home but you should appreciate the natural beauty of the world and thank the plants and animals for helping to give you life and shelter. I vibe with humbleness in the face of the universe.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.