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AIBU?

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Original poster

To struggle to understand practicing non-believers

107 replies

Relient · 25/12/2025 01:47

Hi, first of all this isn’t intended on a personal attack on how any believes of lives there life. I also want to make clear I’m not talking about people who participate in the cultural aspects of a religious holiday but not the religious, it’s about a very specific belief system which I’m struggling to understand.

This year my son began dating someone new, she is early 20s Portuguese and Italian. We aren’t spending Christmas with them but we met up with them today.

In meeting up with them I learnt a lot about her beliefs, again I’m not judging them or saying my inability to understand makes her belief system wrong. I’m merely now thinking about it in a more abstract sense inspired by what I learned.

His girlfriend is what she called an agnostic Catholic or practicing non-believer. She said that she doesn’t believe with full faith there is a god but doesn’t believe it’s impossible for a god to exist, she said that she bases her non-belief on what is currently proven as fact and her lack of commitment to there definitely not being a god on the fact that humanity is ever continuing to learn and discover new things, so she can rationalise that there may be a time where a god could be proven, even if as of yet that isn’t possible.

She then explained that she goes to church during Holy Week, several times around Christmas and any time where she is feeling like she needs some comfort in life, however she doesn’t consciously keep to any rules, confess etc.

I asked why she still goes to church here in London, when she doesn’t really believe and she said she felt the sense of community, tradition, reflection and humility it gives her.

As an atheist I’ve never really been able to understand this view. I fully understand why people believe and are devout, believe and adapt the practices to suit their life, believe but don’t practice and of course I understand people who don’t believe and don’t practice or those who don’t believe but accept the cultural elements of the religious festivals and celebrate them. I just really can’t wrap my head around someone who doesn’t believe, is incredibly articulate and philosophical about why they don’t believe but then chooses to practice anyway, especially in the absence of family being a driving force.

Can anyone here enlighten me? AIBU to struggle to understand this? Is it obvious and I’m somehow subconsciously missing it?

OP posts:
Franjipanl8r · 25/12/2025 02:31

She told you: the sense of community, tradition, reflection and humility it gives her.

Her answer makes complete sense. It might not make sense to you but it makes sense to her which is all that matters.

Gowlett · 25/12/2025 02:30

This is how I approach it, I was brought up as a Catholic.
Most of my friends don’t believe, and don’t bother with it.
I believe, but have questions… So, do I really have faith?
I’m aware that I like the familiarity, comfort & community.

VoltaireMittyDream · 25/12/2025 02:27

I’m agnostic, and I think I can get where she is coming from. The culture and rituals and some of the broader values underpinning the religion she was brought up in give her comfort and connect her to a sense of existential meaning or common cause within the human condition.

I think it sounds lovely, to be honest. I lost my mother ten days ago, and have really felt the lack of any kind of tradition or community or spiritual protocol to help contain and structure my grief. I grew up in a militantly atheist household, and there are 3 generations’ worth of ancestral ashes sitting in cardboard boxes in my aunt’s garage because nobody could decide what to do with them, in the absence of any ceremonial convention. That feels undignified to me - even though I don’t believe in God.

I’d imagine a lot of people raised in a spiritual tradition don’t follow the holy texts to the letter or practice their faith perfectly and consistently - but it is still a valuable anchor in their lives. I envy them in a way - I don’t think it’s a type of relationship you can have with religion unless you were brought up with it.

MyDarlingWhatIfYouFly · 25/12/2025 02:22

I know quite a few catholics who don’t believe but still go to church at important times of year - part of it is that they were brought up with this so it’s comforting and familiar.

I can understand it - I am athiest but was brought up in a religious family - a few years ago I went to a carol service just before Christmas at a local church and I really enjoyed it. The familiarity and link to family members past was wonderful, and I just see the nativity as a traditional Christmas story rather than something that really happened.

ZenNudist · 25/12/2025 02:12

I waa culturally Catholic spiritually agnostic for many years. I didn't go to church as all but identified as Catholic.

Anyway I found God again and all is good. Everyone has their time in the wilderness. A faith journey can make our faith stronger.

Pandorea · 25/12/2025 02:08

I think for many people - particularly if you were brought up as a churchgoer- there’s a God shaped hole when you stop being able to actively believe. I find a lot about Christianity very appealing - that it centres human suffering and concern for others; that there’s a sense of mystery about the divine; the sharing of a community; the beauty of the music and language; focus away from material things; the biscuits etc.
If - while not believing you can accept that God is a possibility- then I think it’s natural to turn to the religion familiar to you for rituals at times like Christmas. Without them Christmas can seem pretty shallow sometimes. Humans have come together for rituals for millennia and just going to the football doesn’t always fill the gap.
I’m still trying to work out what I find helpful about Christianity and am open to the probably fairly small possibility that I might find faith again in the future - so I do seek out church services occasionally as part of this.

NanFlanders · 25/12/2025 01:54

I think she's explained it really: she said she felt the sense of community, tradition, reflection and humility it gives her.