I can't help but think less of someone once I find out they are religious, and I honestly dislike this about myself. Any ideas on how to correct my automatic correlation between religion and stupidity?

I grew up Catholic. Went to catholic school for almost 10 years. Somewhere around my 6-8th year is when I started questioning things. Especially when my religion teacher doubled as the science teacher...i'm like wait....i thought it was one or the other....Like, God created stuff and you just accept it....Or science made everything happen and you research and learn about it. I thought it was one or the other...

And I still kinda do...

I know there's levels to it. I can only talk about Catholicism, because that's what I know...I don't know enough about other's personal beliefs/religions to talk about it.

But I feel like you either believe in Creationism or you don't. There's no shades of gray. I understand people actually are in between and in varying degrees of "well, he created this...and science took care of that..." But I think it's cheating.

I started thinking too much about not just science and evolution, but things like terrorism and natural disasters. How could a loving God let innocent people die? Especially Catholics and other deeply religious people...And even if they weren't just Catholic/religious...I always thought of myself as a good person. Pure of heart when it counts. But I have suffered from depression right before I stopped believing. About a decade and a half ago. And I used to get bullied at school for the way I looked, and that would just make the depression worse. Why would God let bad things happen to good people?

Neither of my parents are too religious. They believe in God. But they're the sometime-y people that only go to Church on Easter and Christmas. I love my step-father to death. I really do. He's such a good guy. But he once had the audacity to say "maybe you wouldn't be so depressed if you had something to believe in." To which I replied: "Why should I believe in something, that I can't bring myself to do, just to make myself feel better? Why would I lie to myself?"

I would say, as of today, that I neither accept nor decline the idea of a/any God. But I don't consider myself "agnostic", I just am not religious. Who am I to say there's not some celestial being who created the universe?

But at the same time, I just don't care. I don't care if someone/something created the universe, or it just "happened." I'm here, and I'll be here until I die. And when I die, and there's some cool afterlife, AWESOME! party for eternity!! But if there's not, and when I die, the lights go out forever...ok then. Cremate me and scatter my ashes into the ocean or make me into a coral reef.

I also believe that we, as a human race (well the majority of us), put to much emphasis on "being" something. You gotta "be" successful, you gotta "be" educated, you gotta "be" this or that.....

Why can't we just live our life how we want, without endangering or knowingly, negatively endangering the lives of others? I understand we can do that. But why should success be expected? There's no format to life. You DONT need a house in the suburbs with a picket fence, perfect spouse, some kids and a dog, 2 cars, a college education, 401k, all by the time you hit a maximum of 35-40 years of age. You can live in the forest among the wildlife. Go live on a fishing boat and shanty away. Smoke weed and work a menial job and barely be able to afford stuff.

Who the fuck cares?! Why?

i know this turned into a rant, I'm sorry

TL;DR we live, we die. Maybe there's an afterlife. maybe not. why does it matter?

/r/atheism Thread