Hello my name is Harry and I am an atheist from a small town on the US Plains.  I am in my 40s.  

Born and raised Catholic.  Went to Catholic High School.  Regularly attended mass.  Got married in the Catholic Church.  My wife teaches at a Catholic Grade School.  My son is baptized Catholic and will soon receive his first communion. My faith has ebbed and flowed many times over the years. I have never really embraced the "Catechism" of the Catholic Church - way too many rules that went well beyond the spiritual realm, but culturally it has always been "home".  In my early 20s I really started exploring other religions and beliefs.  I have read most of the Holy Books of the major religions (Bible, Koran, Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, Tao Te Ching) and explored a fair amount of philosophy, but I am not an educated scholar in either area.  I struggled with "belief" for almost 20 years dropping beliefs a little at a time seeking something that was true and solid.  First Confession, then Communion, then the deification of Jesus, and finally the whole damn thing.

I am not anti-religious.  I think for some people it can provide a certain level of peace and a system to better themselves. Others need something more solid and believable.  

My current beliefs are Pantheistic (without worship) with significant influences from Spinoza and Lao Tzu.  All of the World is composed of matter and energy and that is all that there is.  Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed.  People and the rest of the World are all composed of the same stuff we just take on different forms.  The changes that we make and the things happening in our lives are all minor fluctuations in the entirety of the World.  This outlook feels a little bleak, so I have embraced Stoicism to provide some purpose and focus. 

I appreciate a good debate and a variety of opinions.  I have been lurking around on here for about a month.

I think we got us a Steppenwolf on our hands!

Hello

Welcome aboard, Harry! Good intro.

Boru

Welcome Woof fellow plainsman. I'm also married to a catholic, the cafeteria kind.

Welcome aboard Harry!

(November 9, 2023 at 12:00 am)Harry Haller Wrote: All of the World is composed of matter and energy and that is all that there is.  Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. 

I usually view the word "world" to mean just this planet Earth. You may want to mean the Universe... and still you may be wrong and it may be possible to create matter and energy. Space-time (which can be the same as saying 'nothing') creating particles is a thing that won some guy a Nobel Price some time ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam Wrote:Quantum foam or spacetime foam is a theoretical quantum fluctuation of spacetime on very small scales due to quantum mechanics. The theory predicts that at these small scales, particles of matter and antimatter are constantly created and destroyed. These subatomic objects are called virtual particles.[1] The idea was devised by John Wheeler in 1955.[2][3]

Hiyas, Harry.

Welcome, Harry!

Hello Harry Haller.
How the heck are you ?

Hi, Harry!

I was raised Catholic too, but I was never particularly devout. I couldn't imagine identifying as a Catholic nowadays, for the usual reasons. My family all know I'm not religious and they don't care. My kids were baptized but never even got first communion, and aren't churchgoers.

I admire your interest in studying world religions. I have a literary and anthropological interest in religion and mythology.