This is why I worship the Sun. It's actually there and is provably responsible for all life.

I want to point out another stage: Sexy Post-Religion

And then "people in the sky but further away" followed by "people from another dimension"

I'm still on step 2. My magic animals demand I feed them.

Yes, when you grow up you worship Sol the sun god.

All these clankers still worship magic rocks.

My journey was:

Wait, there's a ton of religions, most of which think that they're the ones with the one immutable truth?

Then none of them are right, or it would be obvious.

I still spent years with Christian apologia and god-in-the-gaps nonsense but at least my personal moral and religious development was rooted in doubt rather than faith.

Somehow both of my parents were disappointed in my atheism.

I was reading a Korean web novel. It was comedy smut tower climbing thing. I picked it up because the pliy sounded ridiculous and I wanted something stupid to read.

There was a mission about resolving a religious war. The main character somehow tricked both sides into thinking they were the decended god.

Both sides worshipped the same god. Dialects and translations changed the name and nobody compared the books because one side was a bunch of fanatics that took the teachings extremely literally. Including something like 99 commandments.

At the very end she blew my mind with some BS they spat about they love all of humanity because everyone is flawed. The commandments are there so you know how flawed you are. They don't force faith because that's not freedom.

I think that's how it should be. I believe in freedom of religion. Anything that brings you peace and makes you a better person.

The issue is always when faith is used to sin. Enforcing your beliefs on others, infringing on thier freedom, taking money/assets. The list goes on.

I'm not an atheist. I'm agnostic.

The current incarnation is economics, which filled the control mechanism void vacated by religion after the Enlightenment. A bunch of arbitrary rules, conjured out of thin air by the ruling class, protected from scrutiny, and imposed upon the masses.

• Churches and cathedrals replaced with banks and financial institutions.
• Priests and clergy replaced with economists and finance officers.
• Mythology replaced with finance.
• God replaced with GDP.

This is not to claim religion and economics shouldn’t play a part in society, they can help with social cohesion and unifying groups for a common goal. My argument is that they should be subservient to the will and needs of the society they exist within, not positioned as their current dictatorial role of casting the societal mould.

Wait... What was the worship of rocks called?

Bottom left corner people are literally astronauts.

Naw, now we’ve cut out the abstraction and worship demagogues directly. :(

God of gaps

I used to basically worship my friend for some fucking reason. I really believed he could not fuck up.

Ex-friend. Now my "beliefs" are hard to comprehend even, but center around certain values, that I invoke all the time.

Far more real and practical than sky man ever was.

strawman fallacy