We’re just a vessel controlled and piloted by microorganisms, on a tiny insignificant rock, in an ordinary galaxy, in an endless universe. Our sense of agency is an illusion, but we must adhere to it in order to persist during our short and finite existence. I type this from the toilet.

I think thats not really a religious thought. Youre thinking and conjecturing things about the universe, and how life forms and matter all fit together in it. If you start worshiping this “greater energy” and declaring how things should be or should be done, then it would start to look more like a religion. Otherwise its just harmless conjecturing about nature.

Since this is /c/atheism: do you believe that there is a god/several gods? If no, then you’re an atheist. If you think that this “energy” is somehow sapient, that it deliberately caused existence or that it somehow actively influences (or can influence) existence/reality, then that might qualify as a “god” (regardless of whether it demands worship or any other specific behaviour).

Whatever else you believe about how the world works is of no interest to the question of (a)theism. Might be spiritualism or something.

Edit: added “reality”, in an attempt to be more precise. Defining “god” isn’t easy.

I can admit that the universe is far more complex than I can possibly imagine. I can admit that there could be forces more powerful than us controlling things. I can admit that I don’t know all the answers. My atheism just tells me that there isn’t an all knowing entity directly controlling all of this.

We have just as much agency in our decisions as a rock does when it is pushed down a river.

A rock cannot push against something though.

We are like a person in a canoe on a river, where the river has a strong influence, but we can have some ability to navigate or even exit the river with the right skills. Some people don’t know what they are doing and are just swept downstream, feeling like they have no control. Others think the river has intent and purpose instead of just being a natural acceptance based on physics.

You only think that rock has no agency but the truth is that it—long ago—decided that it would be relocated by you, because it figured that was long enough in that location.

When we invented silicon transistors, did we really teach the rocks to think or were they thinking—at the quantum level—all along? 🤔

If everything is predestined—based on how an explosive event occurred a long, long time ago, then maybe our existence is like skipping a rock on a pond and seeing how many little hops it gets before it falls in.

Was that rock thrown or was it just another repetition of an infinite loop that has no beginning and no end?

Doesn’t matter. Have some fun while we’re on the back of this rock that’s progressively using biological chemical reactions to convert itself into lots more fun little thinking rocks.

You might be interested in Integrated information theory, which proposes that everything - from an electron up to a galaxy or bigger - can be said to have some unit of consciousness (for certain definitions of consciousness). It’s something between a mathematical framework and a philosophical one, but does put forth some hypotheses that touch on cosmology and thermodynamics and isn’t just nut job pseudoscience.

It sounds like you’re grappling with the question of “why are we here?”. It’s a tough question and one that things like religion and superstition often fill with a nice cozy feeling of purpose. Indeed, you have started to craft your own such ideas to fill that void:

What if we are just appendages of some greater energy based being kind of like cells are a part of us…

It’s a quite comforting thought, to be part of some greater whole. It’s a very human thing to want to belong. We are social animals, even the most introverted among us will seek out some level of social attachment and validation. And religions are very good at providing this. One of the draws of religions is simply being part of a group and being able to identify with others of that group. So, ascribing your existence as being part of a larger entity can be very comforting.

Ultimately, you have to choose what you believe. But, do recognize that you are falling into the trap of a religion of your own choosing. Like any religion, it’s based on a made up story to fill in the gaps for questions like “why are we here?” Because, without the use of magical thinking, that question has no answer. It is a hard thing to look at life and recognize that the answer to that question may well be, “there is no reason”. That the human need for there to be a reason is only us assigning our own views to an inanimate universe. And ya, that’s kinda terrifying. Because it means that there is no greater being watching out for you. That there is no postmortem reward, punishment or anything to hold people accountable for the way they lived their life. If there are no gods, and no afterlife, then a person who lives a horrible life and is never held to account in this life basically “gets away with it”. And the person who lived a good life, but got shit on for it only did so for their own internal satisfaction. And these are the reasons people make up and turn to religions, to fill that hole in themselves and find a purpose. Even if that purpose is a lie. They would rather live a lie than face the possibility that they really are on their own.

I have started thinking about free will a lot and how I don’t believe we actually have it

Free will is certainly a hard issue. If we are completely deterministic, then should we even be held accountable for our actions? It can be comforting to decide that we are completely deterministic and that we aren’t actually accountable for our actions. Instead, they are entirely dictated by our genetics and circumstances. If we commit a horrible act, we were always destined to commit that horrible act, as the initial starting conditions of the universe made it inevitable that we would commit the act. And maybe there is some truth to this. We don’t actually know what consciousness is. At best, it seems to be some sort of emergent phenomena of complex enough biological systems. That said, we also have pretty good evidence that our universe does contain true randomness. At the quantum level, events seem to be probabilistic rather than deterministic, So, set the universe up 100 times with the same starting conditions and let it run, and you will get 100 different outcomes, many of them very distinct. It won’t just be “evil you with a beard” different, it will be “the milky way galaxy doesn’t exist” different. Of course, it could still be that you aren’t actually making a choice, that the possible quantum states collapse to an outcome and you experience that as you making a choice. But, the result is still the same, of the multiverse of possibilities which could have existed, the star stuff that is “you” ended up in the one where you did something. And maybe free will is just different parts of our brain creating conditions where it’s more likely for us to collapse to one type of outcome than another. I can’t control which slit an electron will pass through in a double slit experiment. I can make one of the slits larger and more likely for electrons to pass through.

Honestly, I’d suggest stepping away from the magical thinking parts and spend more time looking at what is driving you to these questions. Do you feel a lack of purpose in your life? Do you feel isolated or alone? If so, maybe the better thing is to spend time with other people and find a purpose and meaning for your life which satisfies you. After all, if you end up being right about being a skin tag on divine being, wouldn’t it want you to have something good to report back about, rather than just a bunch of navel gazing it could have done on it’s own?