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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am asking this question after reading a previous post about people being depressed because they don't have religion in their lives. I am an atheist in my 40s, although I considered myself Christian until my early 20's. However with life and experience I find it impossible to believe in a 'God' and especially anything written in the Bible. It all seems totally unbelievable to me and I hate the way it has given people reasons to discriminate against LGBTQ communities.

I struggle on and off with depression and sometimes I wished I did have a faith to comfort me. It is very easy for people to say you should turn to Jesus etc, but to me it is like believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.[/quote]

OP, have you ever found anything in your life?[/quote]

I went to a Catholic boarding school and was one of the few non catholic students (although baptized Christian). I was judged by some very uptight religious teachers and overheard them gossip about my 'unorthodox'family. I tried to make them like me more by attending all the optional evening prayer services and tried to talk to God but never felt heard. In my late teens and early 20's I struggled really badly with OCD and depression and pleaded to God to help me but I felt no comfort only suicidal. The only thing that helped me in the end was antidepressants and therapy.  I stopped believing in God after this bout of depression and it all seems a lot of hateful made up nonsense to me now. But I do often think it would be nice to believe, some of my good friends do, I just can't seem to make that stretch. Whatever happens I know Catholic Church is not for me or any religion who thinks that being in a same sex relationship is a sin. [/quote]

PP here that is a Catholic convert from atheism.  OP, i'm sorry about your experience as an outside at Catholic school.  Having not grown up Catholic, this is my fear of catholic schools and sometimes I almost wonder if it is better to keep my kids from Catholicism until they reach adulthood and can then approach it with fresh mature eyes rather than be tainted by Catholic culture as kids.  Anyways, I would caution writing off any religion.  To seek the truth, you must be open to wherever it leads you, because you must let God do the leading.  If you are writing something off, it means you don't want to be led and therefore you won't be.  Your faith, or relationship with the Divine, or whatever you want to call it, has to be the central compass of you life.  It is what will inform your other social and moral conviction (like the issue of same sex marriage), not the other way around. [/quote]

I don't believe I need God to give me a social or moral compass. I'm a good person that helps others in need, a good friend, I give to charity and volunteer my time. I think that is integral to being human, shaped my life experience. You don't have to have faith to make the right choices. And if same sex marriage is an example of something that God thinks is a wrong moral choice then the Catholic version of 'God' is absolutely not what I am looking for.[/quote]

How do you make sure that your moral compass is always showing North and not get derailed by magnetic field of mass media or public opinion?[/quote]

NP
The Golden Rule (You can find it in any great religion or moral philosophy)
Love, kindness and compassion.
The Buddha compared his teaching like a raft to cross over to the other side.

[/quote]

Things like the golden rule sound great in theory but are hopelessly broad for any defined moral compass.  Treat others as I would want to be treated.  Sure, great.  But what if I hate myself and want to hurt myself?  What if the "other" is someone who means me harm or is evil?  Does that mean maybe I should use a different rubric?  Love sounds great as well, but what does it mean in practice?  Does it mean enabling a friend who i know is on the wrong path because it's "her truth" and I need to support whatever she chooses?  Or does it mean condemning her path out of love, because love meaning willing the good of the other?  But how do you even know what is the "good" without something more in your moral compass than generic quotes?

The point is, these generic teachings can be used to point to any conclusion on a given topic.  The people who support child sex transitions do so out of love and compassion.  The people who oppose the do so out of love and compassion.  If you have any conviction on the moral topics of the day, your moral compass is more refined than the golden rule.  The only question is whether it has been refined based on objective Truth, or based on media, peers, and other things that are fickle and fleeting. [/quote]

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