There's a lot of philosophical discussion here about semantics, I'll just edge my story in this thread amongst all that.
Today I'm an atheist, though was brought up as a baptist, and sure there's a long gripping tale to all that, but I'll try to keep this post short-ish.
I'm quite partial to the philosophy of pantheism, and enjoy the poetic descriptions of science in philosophical Daoist texts, and in a way I find great comfort in just sitting in and experiencing nature, being thankful that such a random assortment of molecules has evolved over time to give birth to sentience. That I can experience a star-lit sky.
Whether a pantheistic approach, with this admiration of Daoist philosophy and that craving for a transcendentalistic romance with nature can be classed as 'religion' is an area I don't care to discuss, though, to me, these encompass something of a spiritualistic experience, and as an atheist I find it upsetting when the fundamentalists come along and call us cold-hearted, emotionless, unhappy people. I find great happiness in the universe around us.
There's another area I'd like to discuss as well, which is the accusations that atheists disregard religious people's texts, for example: many of such accusations come from Christians who after stating their verse and 'opinion' proceed to then label us incapble of understanding for we haven't read the Bible, as if in reading such a text one would become Christian?
Despite now being atheist, I still find religious texts enjoyable reads and have read this Bible of theirs; it's on my bookshelf next to Daoist texts; Ancient Greek, Egyptian and Norse mythologies; Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Divine Comedy; as well as my books on Arthurian legend, Wuxia canon and the fictional Old West.
For me the religious texts of the world are fascinating fictional ventures, and these mythologies I enjoy immersing myself within, from a purely fictional point of view. But other than that, I've grown out of believing such things could be fact.
I had the similar crushed feeling when it was revealed to me that Yahweh's magical feats were that of fiction, as I did when I began to realise that the Old West wasn't a mythical land full of gunfighters and chivalry..
I managed to separate the legend from the fact, and left it immortalised in its mythology.
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