For those without religion

[coccinelle]

Do you have faith in something else? ie I find by staying positive it helps me get through some very hard situations and I push all negative thoughts (and people) away. I ask for this positive force to help me in my everyday life, which is in fact a kind of god. I've noticed positive attracts positive and negative attracts negative. What do others have 'faith' in outside of religion?

[coccinelle]

jake the peg, I do think positive thinking people seek company of the same I know I do. And those people who are always grumbling like to prove they're right to be like that and only see the negative things happening around them.
naomi, this force of nature and beauty of the universe helps me stay positive I'm positive towards others and motivate them (I teach). I never feel alone in anything I do as this force is always present.
Not easy to explain in words as it's rather what I feel.

[naomi24]

coccinelle, I don’t know, but I suspect the ‘force’ you talk about is really a result of your positive attitude to life and is actually coming from within yourself, so rather than give credit to something unknown, perhaps you should be congratulating yourself on your strength of mind. I also think constantly gloomy people have a very negative impact on those around them. Their attitude exhausts other people's energies. I think of them as being a bit like the Dementors from the Harry Potter books, who suck all the happiness out of people

[coccinelle]

Yes, the dementors... they try to drag you down with them.
I think this positive energy does come from elsewhere we can call it what we like: love, beauty, nature etc all these bring happiness and they aren't within me they're around me.

I would be interested to find out if other people take faith from something out of religion.

[LazyGun]

@Coccinelle - There is often a presumption amongst those of faith that those of no faith are missing out on their appreciation of the world around them, be it spiritual or natural. Those of faith cannot explain how they arrive at that conclusion, they just make the assumption.

Can explain to me how the equivalence works? It would appear from your posts that you automatically believe that atheism = negative thinking or a negative vibe.

Why should rejection of faith (absolute belief in the absence of evidence) automatically mean that said person will be a negative nancy? As an example, I give you Prof. Brian Cox - a less positive person it would be hard to imagine, absolutely full of wonder and amazement at the world around him - but a non-believer. Plenty of others like that.

To reject myth and fairy tale does not automatically equate to being negative.

[coccinelle]

LazyGun; that is not what I mean at all. Quite the opposite. I don't think atheism = negative thinking. in fact, I know a lot of believers whether they are catholic, protestant, JWs (they're very negative) have very negative ideas of this world and so need to believe in another better world after death.
My faith is non religious.

[LazyGun]

@ coccinelle - Then I must have misunderstood your post (s), coccinelle, and I apologise.