To struggle to understand practicing non-believers

[Relient]

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

she said she felt the sense of community, tradition, reflection and humility it gives her.

Asked and answered.

I'm not sure what further explanation you're looking for. Do you mean that you don't understand what she means when she says 'community' or 'tradition' or 'reflection'?

Do you have none of those things in your life? Not from religion, but generally do you have somewhere that makes you feel part of a community? That has a strong sense of tradition and ritual that you find comforting? Somewhere that you can go to reflect?

Maybe she practices certain things "just in case". For an agnostic that makes perfect sense i think. She did say she gets a sense of comfort from it apart from the feeling of community tradition etc.

I am sort of an agnostic atheist in the sense that I think anything is possible but I don't believe there is a god or any higher power. I do pray though when I'm desperate or terrified. I pray even though i don't believe there is anyone to hear my prayers. I say the prayers I learnt as a child but prefaced with an apology to god if god exists for praying without believing. As they say there are no atheists in the trenches.

(Though I don't actually believe that saying. Im sure there are a lot of atheists who wouldn't turn to god even in the trenches). Maybe it depends if you grew up with some sort of religion and learnt to use aspects of it as a coping mechanism

Quite. What more need she explain.

I'm an agnostic Catholic. I was booted out of Catholic school.

BUT

I go to mass occasionally.

I love the Catholic turn of the year. I bloody love a Latin mass.

It's cultural.

There's a comfort in Catholicism. If you're brought up there.

I don’t really believe but enjoy going to church sometimes especially in the village I grew up in and the Abbey where I now live. Beautiful old village church with lots of happy memories from childhood. Enjoy the history of the place the music and the peace. Doesn’t seem weird at all. You seem to have quite a literal “all or nothing” view of life.

There is a community that you know is there.

You don't have to tap into it all the time.

But it's there.

I stopped believing in God while I still believed in Santa. I trusted my parents that these presents didn't come from nowhere. Still... The older I get, the more I believe in something. I think, like Sister Wendy, that religion can be a framework -I don't think she believed in the big magician in the sky. I now think of it as a community of people in search of the transcendent. I don't believe what a lot of them believe, but I'll go to Mass on Christmas Day. I believe that there is something beyond our understanding, but I don't think anyone else understands either. I think the existence of the Universe is miraculous. I think love is a miracle. I love the idea of going to a place to ponder on the miracle of everything, even if I don't believe what any religious people tell me I'm supposed to believe. I'm going straight to Hell anyway as I'm a filthy abomination. 🤣

She explained it well, your evident disapproval is closing your mind

This is how I feel.

Interesting thread.

Many posts have explained it well.

I too love to go to church at Christmas, carol's and christingle, and love to be prayed for, and say grace. But am not practicing. It feels embarrassing and I can't quite reconcile the fact I'm not practising. I'll give this some thought.

I completely get where you’re coming from.

I’m an atheist Jew and I attend synagogue sporadically, light candles on Friday night and celebrate the major holidays. I grew up religious and it’s comforting to go back there sometimes and it’s nice to feel like I’m passing something down from my ancestors - even if it means something slightly different to me. I also went to church tonight with my mother in law (my husband isn’t Jewish) and it was lovely. I felt really peaceful afterwards despite having no connection to that religion at all. There’s more to observance than worshipping a diety and I get a lot from it.

My DIL is Italian and very similar, she has a very nuanced take on existence, morality and the role religion plays in it. She attends church, multiple times a year, her reasoning is mainly that it's somewhere she enjoys being, finds comfort and values the ritual and tradition. She also attends an Italian language church in the uk so there is a massive aspect of it not just being religion but community and culture.
Her overall take is generally that whilst she doesn't necessarily believe in the metaphysical existence of God with full faith, she does believe in the morals and values she interprets from the religion.
She is very much existentialist in her personal philosophy (no prescribed meaning side, rather than the nihilistic side), but has decided that meaning in her life involves church.
Her biggest internal debate is mostly around what they will do when they have children.

Like several PPs, I'm an occasional attender, and agnostic. Church is part of my personal history, regardless of whether I currently believe.

And, fwiw, I like the ideas of love, forgiveness, and repentance which are at the heart of Jesus' teaching.

i was raised CofE, church every Sunday, christened, confirmed etc and I suppose I do the same. I still enjoy a service and communion.

I think that community shaped hole as religion has faded is what I miss. If I’m honest I think the world misses it. I don’t believe in a literal god but view the ideas more as a group understanding of ideals of behaviour and community. Coming together in song and prayer is powerful and good for us.

These seem to be similar views of lots of people in a similar boat takes about here.

I went to church for the ww1 commemoration. I wanted somewhere quiet and serious where I could be with other people and just sit and be quiet. Church felt like the best fit. At Christmas churches have carols that are etched deep into our consciousness. I was brought up by atheists but with the rhythm of Christianity. It's no wonder I want to go back to the rhythms of them now and then.

Beautifully put

I’ve seen posts where atheists have asked if it would be ok for them to attend church as they think the sense of community would be good for them. As I recall the answers were welcoming. So what she does isn’t completely unusual