While religion isn’t the only solution science definitely won’t help and logic can only tell you if structure of thought is true but not its premise content.
So, your are left with 3 options:
Ignore them an go about your life
Pick some faith based belief structure to assist in answering them
attempt to use science/logic with no faith based belief structure so your assumptions are entirely you and thus functionally creating your own personal religion
I wasn’t religious because I had non-empirical questions, I was religious because someone taught me that there was a God when I was young and impressionable. So me logicing myself out of religion wasn’t finding answers for such a question but instead was just concluding that the christian God is not real and that I had no reason to believe any other Gods were real either.
Same. Catechism as a teenager was the final nail in the coffin of a fast fading belief in what I’d been indoctrinated into as a child. I had an excellent pastor who didn’t just swat my questions aside with “because God said so”, he actively encouraged question and discussed deep philosophical/theological topics, acknowledging that Christianity is an ongoing development. Instead of biblical literalism he was honest that it’s a religion that has been developed over centuries, with some tangents that died out/were suppressed while others won out, and post-Protestantism has fractured into a myriad of interpretations.
What broke my belief was that my church taught unbaptised babies who died went straight to hell. No middle ground, no “get into heaven free” card because they have no control over whether that happened or not, just “Original Sin” damns you. I told him I couldn’t in good faith be confirmed into a belief that supports such an idea, and if that really was how God treated people, I had no interest in being loyal to that God. When my pastor told me he didn’t really believe that either but still chose to be a representative of that religion I was done. Like, you don’t even believe the shit you’re endorsing but you endorse it and repeat it anyway? What else about this system do you think is bs but push anyway?
Now I’m more of an indifferent agnostic. I can’t with 100% certainty “know” there’s not some other beings out there that exist outside my understanding of existence, but I am 100% certain that if there are their existence has no bearing on my daily life, my morality, nor do they have any noticeable influence over humanity. The human made religions about these imaginary beings that may or may not exist, those have considerable influence over how humans interact, but they’re still humans even if they think imaginary until proven otherwise beings have got their back.
This is the exact wrong place to try and have a discussion about religious beliefs. Regardless of what I say it will be downvoted to hell or taken in bad faith. I’m not interested in either. Whatever you believe and why is absolutely fine for you. In no way would anything I say convert you to my way of thinking nor would I necessarily want to. I’d also need a way more detailed explanation of how you logic-ed your way out of all religion to even understand where we disagree. I would have said the same thing if you said you faith-ed your way out of believing in science. That’s not really how faith or science work.
I wasn’t starting a theologic discussion I was disagreeing with a statement. I used a simple response and ended it there. I then clarified why specifically I wouldn’t want to have said theologic discussion in this setting. Especially considering the premise of logic-ing your way out of faith is a fundemental misunderstanding of both concepts in my personal completely subjective opinion. Trying to express my more detailed opinions wouldn’t change anyone’s mind or lead to any sort of new thinking. It would lead to me being heavily downvoted and/or dog piled on in this setting.
You don’t need to argue anything. You made a claim, that “this is not how religion works” and I would like to understand what you mean by that.
Not OP but I’ll try to hop in.
How do you deal with non-empirical questions?
While religion isn’t the only solution science definitely won’t help and logic can only tell you if structure of thought is true but not its premise content.
So, your are left with 3 options:
I wasn’t religious because I had non-empirical questions, I was religious because someone taught me that there was a God when I was young and impressionable. So me logicing myself out of religion wasn’t finding answers for such a question but instead was just concluding that the christian God is not real and that I had no reason to believe any other Gods were real either.
Same. Catechism as a teenager was the final nail in the coffin of a fast fading belief in what I’d been indoctrinated into as a child. I had an excellent pastor who didn’t just swat my questions aside with “because God said so”, he actively encouraged question and discussed deep philosophical/theological topics, acknowledging that Christianity is an ongoing development. Instead of biblical literalism he was honest that it’s a religion that has been developed over centuries, with some tangents that died out/were suppressed while others won out, and post-Protestantism has fractured into a myriad of interpretations.
What broke my belief was that my church taught unbaptised babies who died went straight to hell. No middle ground, no “get into heaven free” card because they have no control over whether that happened or not, just “Original Sin” damns you. I told him I couldn’t in good faith be confirmed into a belief that supports such an idea, and if that really was how God treated people, I had no interest in being loyal to that God. When my pastor told me he didn’t really believe that either but still chose to be a representative of that religion I was done. Like, you don’t even believe the shit you’re endorsing but you endorse it and repeat it anyway? What else about this system do you think is bs but push anyway?
Now I’m more of an indifferent agnostic. I can’t with 100% certainty “know” there’s not some other beings out there that exist outside my understanding of existence, but I am 100% certain that if there are their existence has no bearing on my daily life, my morality, nor do they have any noticeable influence over humanity. The human made religions about these imaginary beings that may or may not exist, those have considerable influence over how humans interact, but they’re still humans even if they think imaginary until proven otherwise beings have got their back.
This is the exact wrong place to try and have a discussion about religious beliefs. Regardless of what I say it will be downvoted to hell or taken in bad faith. I’m not interested in either. Whatever you believe and why is absolutely fine for you. In no way would anything I say convert you to my way of thinking nor would I necessarily want to. I’d also need a way more detailed explanation of how you logic-ed your way out of all religion to even understand where we disagree. I would have said the same thing if you said you faith-ed your way out of believing in science. That’s not really how faith or science work.
You started one though
I wasn’t starting a theologic discussion I was disagreeing with a statement. I used a simple response and ended it there. I then clarified why specifically I wouldn’t want to have said theologic discussion in this setting. Especially considering the premise of logic-ing your way out of faith is a fundemental misunderstanding of both concepts in my personal completely subjective opinion. Trying to express my more detailed opinions wouldn’t change anyone’s mind or lead to any sort of new thinking. It would lead to me being heavily downvoted and/or dog piled on in this setting.