Are there more atheists than theists on Fluther?

Atheist.

I’m a Theist, with no particular religion. I haven’t been a regular church goer in 35 years. But once in a while I will attend a Christian church. I love hearing sermons, but get most of them from the radio or pod casts. The reason I enjoy sermons so much is for two reasons. One, for the historical references that many good Pastors provide with original Greek translation of words. Second, I enjoy seeing how the religious interpretation of the Bible differs greatly from my own.

I also study other world religions. Buddhism, Hinduism, yet the Qur’an is my current project and my knowledge of it thus far is limited.

My Theism is based primarily upon science, philosophy, and experience. Yes, I believe in a personal God. But the God I believe in is not the same as typical religious depictions.

I think there are more Atheists than Agnostic and Theists combined on Fluther. I could be wrong.

I believe in me!

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies You sound somewhat similar to me. I used to enjoy going to church when I was younger because there is something about the enviroment of a church that always put me in a good mood. I attend occasionally myself these days (but not often). We have no way of know until it’s all over for us I guess though I have my own reasons for my beliefs.

I agree with your bottom paragraph. This site does seem to have alot more atheists than anyone else by a very large margin. Either that or more theists are afraid to speak up. I’m not and I will always offer an opposing viewpoint because it is needed very badly on Fluther.

Anyone that answers will get a free great answer from me since I am only looking for a basic answer here and appreciate the honesty.

Atheist.

Thiest. I attend church.

Agnostic.

Flying Spaghetti Monster
www.venganza.org/

@boffin Very different, lol. So your an atheist I will assume (in layman’s terms).

Agnostic atheist.

Loveist.

Agnostic

I’m non-religious and have not believed in a god since I was a kid, but do not identify as either an atheist or agnostic (though the latter bears a closer description to where I stand.) I like many aspects of eastern religions, particularly Buddhism, but I’m hesitant to ascribe to anything.

@rebbel Loveist (where do they go when they pass away?) I’m afraid to ask.

Soft-agnostic/transcendentalist/Sufi/abstract naturalist-theist.

Depends on my mood, but I never slip into assured atheism.

Agnostic Athiest

I am Bahá’í.

For clarity’s sake and ease of communication I will say to others I am a theist, on my grumpy days a deist, maybe even an agnostic theist. The complicated truth is, while lots of people have lots of different labels for describing perceptions of the Divine or the absence of the Divine, I haven’t found the perfect one yet. I tend to put most of my energy towards matters of what some call soul and some call ethics and experience.

Agnostic!

Spiritualist. I believe in a spiritual side to life, but I don’t profess to know how it works. I’m also open to the idea that I’m wrong. I’m not a Christian though I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian family. I walk a very quirky line between belief and agnosticism.

I’m Wiccan, have been since… oh, I dunno, maybe age 19 or so? When I was first practicing, it all made so much sense to me, I’d tapped into what you’re supposed to tap into, I worked magick successfully, explored the limits of my consciousness, basically I was a practicing Witch and felt very secure in my beliefs. I was also able to find comfort in the Divine when in emotional straits.

In my early 20’s, I was in a deeply abusive relationship that over the course of time, slowly stripped from me pretty much everything I held dear in terms of beliefs, practices, and who I am. It was really, really hard to pick up the pieces of myself after that, much less find the motivation to get back into religion. Then it kind of snowballed, I kept trying to get myself back and get to the point where I started practicing again, but you know, life happens and I found myself needing to focus more on survival and sorting things out.

Fast-forward to now… I feel much less secure in what I once believed. On good days, I’m Wiccan (I guess you would categorize me as a monotheist, but my beliefs about that are different than, say, Christianity). On bad days, I’m a scientist and I’m convinced that when you die, that’s it.. you go into the ground and decay and re-enter the ecosystem as a scattering of molecules. On bad days, I see very clearly how silly religion is, basically stepping outside of the human experience and observing it in a dry, unbiased, observational manner (worshiping some old dude in the sky and creating a bunch of arbitrary rules and behaviors). Yeah, I have a bit of a dark side, I admit.

THEN, though.. there are the GREAT days that make life worth living, that make me kick the dour, grumpy, bitter scientist back into hiding. I live for those moments where I feel, without a doubt, the touch of the Divine. It’s hard to describe, but in those moments, I feel raised slightly above human experience, put in touch with something greater. Things seem clearer, whether it’s feeling certain there is something more than randomness and natural selection at work, or that we’re all connected, or that if I have faith and live my life with purpose and goodness, everything will be okay. Those are the times where I’m struck by the sheer beauty of something and it’s almost too much to bear. Or those perfect moments made perfect by something mysterious.. perhaps I’ve done something similar before, but this time, everything feels pristine and perfect and like everything in the universe came together to make that time special.

In these moments, I am filled with limitless joy. My heart leaps and bursts, I feel the beauty of everything flow through me. And that, as I know it, is the hand of the Divine.

Agnostic for logical reasons, but wishing I could believe. The structure of my mind is such that I’m incapable of believing in anything I can’t quantify, but I admit the possibility that paranormal things, such as deities, might exist.

Why is this Q in the Meta section?

@JubalHarshaw, I think because it is specifically referencing the Fluther population.

Theist. Craisins and baby bunnies are all the proof I need in a higher power.

I am a deist, in that range somewhere at least, who depending on my mood and state of mind, might be more of an agnostic one day and more of a theist another day. Though I don’t consider myself an atheist or even really an agnostic, I have rejected all dogma, doctrine and theology currently available for rejecting and if and when anyone proposes additional doctrines and dogmas, I will reject those also. I don’t care what you believe or don’t believe as long as you’re not up in my face about it (atheists included). That’s the general rule. The specific rule is that I don’t care what you believe as long as you understand the difference between belief and science and keep your beliefs out of the public schools and out of the government (yes Christians, I’m talking about you). I feel absolutely no obligation whatsoever to define, to defend or to explain my beliefs to anyone; that is something atheists seem to feel that I owe them, some defense, but I owe you no defense or explanation at all. Christians, Christian fundamentalists, tell me that failing to believe what they believe condemns me to an eternity of damnation; atheists, atheist fundamentalists tell me that failing to believe what they believe condemns me to a finite lifetime of ignorance and irrationality. To be honest, I have neither the time nor the patience for either position nor the time and the patience to have all your well worn arguments pounded into my brain one more time. Well, there it is. That’s it in a nutshell.

I don’t believe in anything… other than pain hurts… and pizza is good

@talljasperman I’m not sure that “pain hurts” is necessarily a belief. I think that is something that can be known with some reasonable degree of certainty. Pizza is good? That’s a different story, even though I believe it too.

I consider myself an agnostic. I was raised by theists and had no big problems with the way I was raised. It was only as I got older that religion started making less and less sense to me and I started seeing many, many problems with theism. I now consider myself an agnostic. I am not opposed to the idea of a God existing, but I don’t subscribe to any idea that one does exist.

And that, my dear friend, @DominicX is rational, that makes you a freethinker. You have approached the religion, the religious doctrine that was presented to you growing up and realized that it doesn’t make sense but you also understand that you are not in a position to declare with absolute certainty that God does or does not exist. I still believe, no matter what I believe personally, that agnosticism is really the only truly rational position to take as to the existence of God. No one can know something that is unknowable.

I’m a practising flutherist.

@zen_ That’s a fine religion, if you ask me. I like it because I don’t have to atone for my sins; my sins are simply removed by fluther moderators and that’s generally the end of it. :-)

I belong to the Church of Boxxy.

@FutureMemory ಠ_ಠ

Somewhere between an agnostic with atheistic leanings and a full fledged atheist.

I BELIEVE MORE REALISTS.

Officially may parents “registred“me as a Christian,but I’m an agnostic with atheist tendencies.But I wish my brain could believe in Buddhism and Confucianism because those people seem very happy to me.And happiness is What I’m pursuing .

@Jabe73 . . . I will assume (in layman’s terms).

Pastafarian
Pastafarinism

@Christian95 My wish for you and your brain is for you to believe what makes sense to you.

that makes perfect sense to me and my brain

Late. But I’m an atheist. Fluther turns me in to an atheist. And I’m happy as an atheist.

@Doctor_D Did Fluther turn you into an athiest, or did hearing the beliefs of other people just uncover what you already felt?

I grew up in a very Christian environment. The church we belonged to was an extended family (and still is), summers were spent working at a Christian conference center filled with other teens who were religious and the children of ministers and missionaries, and I attended a Christian college and was a member of the chapel council.

It wasn’t until I started reading the bible and learning about other religions that I started questioning what I always doubted. My real life is still primarily surrounded by devout Christians. Fluther Q&A around religion has helped me realize that I am not insane or evil for feeling the way that I do and that I am not the only one who questions that a god exists.

theist, Christian, Buddhist, Spiritualist.

@Pied_Pfeffer Late,again. I was actually a theist,then I work on my own to investigate the reality about meaning and purpose of religions and that turns me in to an agnostic. Later,after I join fluther,and ask and discuss about this issue it opens my rational mind and I’m an atheist from there.

I must admit that people here are able to win the rational side of my life,thus eliminating all those ‘irrational’ belief in my life. At first,it was a bit disappointed to realize the truth about the existence of God and religions,but when I realize I know the truth about such thing I finally feel the happiness of the reality. In fact,I’m more happy when I’m an atheist than when I was a theist.

@Doctor_D Thank you for sharing. And Lurve to you.

I should have put this in the general section. Only half answered my question without messing around.

Crapped in my pants-theists.

Yes. My gut feeling is that there are at most 30% theists around.

@mattbrowne Ha ha, and even less than 1% non-theistic dualists. Not sure if I termed that correctly.

@Jabe73 “Dualists”?

Mind and matter. An eternal puzzle…