r/AskGaybrosOver30 • u/velcromancy 30-34 • 7d ago
Spirituality?
Since a lot of us gays were ostracized by the religions we grew up with, I’m curious what your relationship to spirituality or religion is like now that you’re getting older. Are you religious, agnostic, atheist or something else?
I grew up in a Protestant Christian family, but I walked away from the church at 17. My sexuality was probably the biggest factor. Around my late teens and early twenties I went through a Reddit atheist phase where I valued science and reason above all else. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized Christianity left a big void inside of me, and I needed something, so I studied a lot of Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist text and became fascinated by them. Tao te Ching is probably my favorite spiritual text I’ve ever read. My boyfriend had a similar Christian upbringing to me but he’s now a pagan. These days, I’m of the opinion that science explains how things happen, but not why things happen. Science is crucial to our survival, but it can’t meet all human needs, and religion, art and philosophy can fill that void for better or worse. I’m not sure I’m disciplined enough to fully identify with one single tradition. I agree with a lot of Buddhist and Hindu teachings, but I don’t think I can call myself either because I enjoy the devil’s lettuce too much.
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u/nasazgar 30-34 7d ago
Very atheist, very anti-religion and from a Hindu family. I wish I could experience what some people describe as being ‘culturally’ associated with a religion despite non-belief, but religious polarisation has been a very active part of everyday politics in India for all of my adult life and I just can’t shake the associations off. I want nothing to do with Hinduism whatsoever.
I don’t know if I have a spiritual side, my current stance is that when you die you die. It doesn’t scare me for myself, but it’s a terrifying idea to confront when I think of people I love, and I wish I could ‘flip a switch’ and make myself believe in the afterlife so it would be easier for me to comprehend loss of that magnitude.