this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
37 points (91.1% liked)

Ask Lemmy

40948 readers
1364 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world


7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.


8) No Bots.
Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I have never had serious thoughts about religion till now.

I am a little confused if I should ever take it seriously - i like the serenity religious institutions provide - the artwork - the quiet comfort - but dislike the brainwashing and scams.

Would love to know how the community got started with this.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Brought up in the UK being expected to go to Sunday school etc - but Christianity seemed utter nonsense to me, and I was at a loss to understand why so many adults appeared to take it seriously.

Early 20s (still pre-internet)- I met someone who was involved with an evangelical church and I determined to give Christianity another proper 'go' and try to understand what people were finding in it. That eventually resulted in me crying in a heap in the corner of my room as I first felt that I could not even find 'the door' let alone open it and let Jesus in (as that church was keen on expressing it) and then realising that it had once and for all confirmed that there was no 'door' at all.

Shortly after that, I met a group of pagans and started reading some books about neopaganism, wicca and druidry. There was a lot of dross, of course (as there is in Christianity) but the underlaying ideas clicked immediately. I have been though several phases of how I express that and it is pretty low-key these days - but I have considered myself a pagan ever since. I changed career a couple of years after that and became a wildlife ranger for the next 20+ years and was a visiting pagan chaplain for some local prisons for several years as well.

Oh dang, good on you chaplaining for pagan prisoners. And yeah the connection to earth through paganism has had a huge positive effect on me. I've also found that celebrating the solstices, equinoxes, and midway points has done wonders for me feeling in tune with life itself.

I had the door for Christianity, but I have no desire to leave my paganism even if I wish it was easier to find community that I felt like I fit in properly with with it.