I was raised in a pretty conservative religion that listened to right-wing radio and news. However, I recently deconstructed religion entirely and can see it for the sham it is now. Once I did that my political ideology completely changed to the opposite. I’m now pretty progressive and happier than I’ve ever been.
Severe abuse by the church made me firmly anti religion for most of my youth, and then meeting religious people of varied faiths who weren’t monsters softened my feelings as I realized it wasnt all entirely evil. Then studying some of my family’s roots brought me where I am now: vaguely pagan while still acknowledging that I’m always going to be culturally Christian. I like to just tell people I’m a “recovering Catholic” for brevity and a laugh.
As for my social and political views, it was seeing all my friends come out as queer and realizing that I could either keep the far right views my family taught me, or I could learn to get my head out of my ass to keep my found family. Once I started forming my own opinions, I realized I got fed a load of shit my whole life(and also I’d wind up coming out too lmao)
Being poor and being treated poorly was radicalized. Serving in the military reinforced my world view.
Somewhere in there, I even considered myself a libertarian. Then I realized how childish they were, learned how manipulated they were by rich, greedy people, and since gone further left than most.
^verbatim, same. Libertarian phase ended around 2016, when Trump really opened the can of Nazi worms on the Republican side, which slapped me out of the “bOtH sIdEs aRe tHe sAmE” stupor.
Haven’t missed an election since, big or small. Solid blue.
- Raised Catholic - was pretty religious when young.
- In adolescence, started questioning things that didn’t make sense to me (e.g., why would God not want people to use birth control if they couldn’t afford kids? Why would he make people have a strong urge for sex but not want them to have it except for babies, and all the more typical things).
- Struggled more and more with things that didn’t make sense to me as I i got older (if God created everything, knows what’s going to happen, etc., how does it make sense to pray for something? Should he changed his plan because I asked really nicely? Etc.).
- Finally realized that all the myriad things that didn’t make sense to me disappeared if it turns out there is no god.
- Free from that notion, everything has clicked into place for me and the world makes more sense. It’s been 40ish years since then.
I thankfully was raised in the exact region and community with the correct religion and prevailing political views. /s
In reality, humanities courses in university, living in the many different types of communities (urban, suburban, rural), and good parents who taught me not to take claims at face value.
Raised devout Mormon/LDS. 9/11 reaffirmed political conservativism. Church assigned me to be a missionary (age 19-21) in Portland, Oregon where I found liberals treated me with better respect than conservative christinans.
In 2006, my house rep said something royally stupid, so I voted for his Democratic rival. And like Pringles, once you pop you can’t stop.
Today I’m a fiery but loyal moderate democrat.
I’ve lived in the Southeast USA, SoCal, Southeast, and SoCal again, each for many years. It amazed me how much the culture is polarized in each area. I think both areas suck hard on the propaganda sauce. I’m hard left now just because I’m for helping people, and hate zealotry
Developing a bullshit detector and having basic empathy. Atheist; friendly to friendly people, hostile to hostile people; believe government should serve the people, never the other way around.
I was brought up pretty non-religious. I remember in my very young years going to a non-denominational church. There was Sunday school and stuff. We moved across the country when I was 10 years old and family never went to church again. Mom would get a bit deep in it at Christmas with some bible reading. Got to my teenage years, searching for an identity. Tried church and totally was not for me. Too much telling me what and how I’m supposed to think. I’ve been an anti-theist ever since. 35+ years now.
Religious: I grew up in a deeply religious household, my parents are still very religious and they consider that the cornerstone of their lives. No judgement here, they are great people and I’ve never once seen them use their religion to hurt others. For me, I appreciate the moral lessons I learned in that church and I think it made me a more empathetic person. I just have no particular need for a religion to be a good person. Stopped following any religion in my early 20s.
Social and political: See also 1. Being bullied as a kid made me have a deep rooted hatred for people who harm others, which means I tend to champion oppressed people now. Honestly, however, this should be a normal human thing to do. Beyond that, I tend to have a “live and let live” attitude towards most things so long as you’re not bothering anyone else. I guess that makes me one of those snowflake liberals that are destroying America?
Got raised in an openly leftist country, with socialist ideals permeating the culture everywhere and a pretty strong hard on on communism. No need to say that ideas never worked in real life.
I Experienced how it slowly drive the country from better to worse without any external output and meeting these public officials face to face always pointed to them using the position of power and claims of popular sovereignty slogans to pocket their own bags.
Nevertheless my family worked hard to raise us, a task becoming increasingly difficult by each and every socialist policy put in place.
Price controls? Everything became scarce. Of course the higher ups always had food to eat while we spent 3 weeks eating loafs of bread. The last week we didn’t eat at all.
Currency controls? Great, now whatever was remaining from price controls now was 100 times more expensive. Not for the socialist party members tho. They had access to the privilege of the American devil’s money
Defundind the police? Great, now the little safety there was while going out on the streets went kaput and crime soared even more. Oh but not too the government members, no. They had private security.
Food sovereignty projects designed to feed the population? Hijacked by the same leftists claiming to love the people to pocket their bags even more, with tons of food going to waste directly and never reaching people in need. Of course, you had to be a member of the socialist party to receive the little that did arrive, mind you. Nevermind it only lasted for a week, your human dignity was well worth the price, as the socialists had effectively lowered it.
Medical centers built all over the country? Sure, that couldn’t backfire could it? No if you count the exploitation of others brought to our country, and which salary got Pocketed by the higher ups, not only from our socialist government, but also from the party members outside the country of a not so far island. Nevermind also the usage of these centers as propaganda machines, only half built at times and being re inaugurated over and over for years in a wasteful showcase of public funding.
And much more
After experiencing that, I promptly proceeded to tell my history and my country story with socialism, leftists and communism in general, only to be harassed constantly by wannabe champagne socialists on the internet. Mind you, English is not my first language so my interactions are less than ideal, with much of my wording getting confusing to anyone not inclined to understanding and more so, empathy.
After all that, is it a wonder I despise leftists, socialists, communists and authoritarians to my core?
I’d say it’s not.
What do you think of social democracy (e.g nordic model)? Capitalist at its core but with influences from socialism that results in a strong social net, free healthcare, public housing, and the like.
I don’t know about that but I do understand they are very capitalists at their core , which I appreciate a lot as having the opportunity to make yourself and others better is all I ask, without the need of well intentioned people to virtue signal their high moral ground over me or others.
That possible future of mine and my family’s possible future was taken away from me by those kinds of people. And I don’t like it a single bit.
That’s more of a corruption issue isn’t it? If your country was the opposite leaning politically, the same corrupt politicians would still do their best increase their wealth and power at the expense of anyone else. It’s not something unique to the left or the right, or any political stance. Power corrupts, and as you gain more power, thus increasing the chance for corruption, the easier it is to gain more power. Ad infinitum.
all things being equal, all countries have corruption. Then The only variable here was the ideological leaning as corruption already is in every country because no one is perfect.
But what can I say, we can’t redo our life and be reborn in a different country to experience it directly. We only got the one chance.
Sadly that was my experience. Anyone is free to disregard it or learn from it
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Eh I’m doing my best to express my very real concerns in a written manner. If I were speaking, oh boy!
Hi, could you tell me what country you’re from? I’ve read through twice but I still can’t guess. ONLY if you’re comfortable with linking this account to that country though.
Not even going to read the thread before making this comment.
Remember rule 1 in this one.
No one speaks about the fight club?
Once I hit my early 20s I had a goal for myself: to find out what the truth is, whatever it may be, even if it shatters my most cherished beliefs. I went through so many different belief systems. I explored every kind of mindset I could regarding everything I could. I would get very involved with some belief system or ideology for a time and absorb what I could from it and then move on to something else.
Over time, I saw a ton of patterns emerge and I saw that ideologies of any kind place a limited filter on how one views reality. I decided that what makes the most sense to me is to simply seek to do the most good while doing the least harm. Whether or not one believes in a god is irrelevant as life does as it will anyway. Adhering to a political party is just team sports. Social norms are basically attempts to not be uncomfortable and only pretend to be about safety and order (neither of which exist regardless of what social norms exist).
I have two questions:
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does the fact that you found patterns and filters that limit mean you decided your religious search was over?
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how long did it take for you to cool off your “search with purpose”?
My religious search ended gradually as I became atheist over time. The scientific method seemed to be the most reliable way to find out what is true. I began my search in earnest probably in my late teens and really ramped it up in my early 20s and I was atheist by age 36 or 37.
Well, I have a belief in God. I generally consider atheists “a-thor-ists” aka they do not believe that Thor God of thunder is the master of the universe (and any other definitions you found over the years). I respect the effort you put into searching and I also use the scientific method. Because you aren’t currently searching, I’m not going to advertise. Have good fortune whatever you are doing!
I appreciate that. You as well!
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I wrote a lot about it earlier today.
