What faith have you chosen?

[narya]

Born and raised Catholic. Had repeated soul-killing bouts of depressed, that whittled away my faith. Finally lost all conviction that there is a God or anything supernatural. I'm done with the depression, and I want to believe, but that part of me is dead. I miss belonging to the Church. I sometimes go, and say the words, and feel a faint echo of what I used to feel. Sometimes that just makes it worse. I wish there was a God. What does that make me?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I am, not surprisingly, the "other". I have spoken at some length at certain points about my spiritual beliefs, but I'll try to sum them up here again at some point, when I have sufficient time, and the right mood.

[baby tuckoo]

I, too, did not follow the Impish explanation, nor did I know that Nin was, like me, outside of faith.


Yes, VtF, the right mood and enough time are needed to expound on this.

[Cerin]

narya, I think that would put you in the agnostic camp.

[Primula Baggins]

I would hope that any intelligent adult would give a lot of thought to matters of belief/unbelief, and not continue in any path if it can't be done with honesty and integrity. I'm sure there are "rote" followers of many different paths, people who don't care to think about it or who have social or family reasons to pay lip service to something they don't believe in.

I do have to say that most of the people I know who were never given any religious education as children—who were left to "choose for themselves" because their parents were in conflict on the issue or didn't care—most of those people chose nothing.

I've brought my children up in my church, and would be delighted to see it eventually be as important to them as it has become to me, over the years. But to be honest, I would rather see them step away from my church or into another, or simply decline to be religious, than see them continue with a ritual that's empty for them out of inertia or an unwillingness to disappoint me. I do believe, and I do believe it is important, and I would wish that for them; but I can't impose it.

I think giving them a religious education (I mean, at church; they went to secular schools) was the right thing to do, because it at least has let them consider these things important and worthy of study and thought—whatever they may conclude. (And, of course, their father and I did promise to do this when they were baptized, as babies.)

[Impenitent]

I didn't mean to be obtuse.

EDIT: sorry, it had to go.

Basically, I chose to convert to Judaism in my twenties, cleaving to the ethical fundamentals of the faith, but to this day remain a fence-sitter as to the nature of god.

[JewelSong]

I put "Christian/Protestant" for the poll, although I consider myself more to be "Christian/Other"

Raised Prebyterian. My parents were church goers and my father, particularly was a strong believer, but also very open-minded and interested in other faiths and beliefs. There was a lot of encouragement to become familiar with not only the Bible, but other sacred writings and texts.

I was a practicing Quaker for many years and still attend Meeting if I can.

I have been told that I am "not a real Christian" (by so-called other Christians) because I do NOT believe that the only way to God is through accepting Jesus, nor do I believe in the Virgin birth or a literal resurrection.

I do, however, believe that Jesus was Divine. A Spiritual Adept. And I do believe in His teachings and his Love. And so...I am a Christian, by my own definition. (And I think Jesus is cool with it, too! )

[yovargas]

Thank you for that, Impy. That makes sense to me.

I would hope that any intelligent adult would give a lot of thought to matters of belief/unbelief, and not continue in any path if it can't be done with honesty and integrity. I'm sure there are "rote" followers of many different paths, people who don't care to think about it or who have social or family reasons to pay lip service to something they don't believe in.

I had a friend not too long ago, a guy raised in the same Church as me, who explicitly told me he was only a Christian because it's what he was raised with and it was easier then having to figure out for himself what he believed. As you can imagine, he wasn't a particularly devout "Christian".

[axordil]

I had a friend not too long ago, a guy raised in the same Church as me, who explicitly told me he was only a Christian because it's what he was raised with and it was easier then having to figure out for himself what he believed.

I suspect there are more folks like that out there than we would like to think. Too many people spend more time deciding which sports franchise to support than which religion really suits their spiritual needs.

Obviously what religion needs is more statistics. Souls Brought In, Intercessions, that sort of thing.

[Maria]

I'm more "New Age" than anything else- but my beliefs are a pretty eclectic lot.

Which is kind of the definition of New Age, anyway....

[WampusCat]

I am Christian-Protestant. Raised Southern Baptist, had serious flirtation with Catholicism because of my innate love of mystery and liturgy, then settled happily into the Episcopal Church.

But I am comfortable with the concepts and followers of every religion, and with those who do not experience a spiritual connection to God or do but cannot easily categorize it.

[WampusCat]

Obviously what religion needs is more statistics. Souls Brought In, Intercessions, that sort of thing.

This reminds me of an old Frank & Ernest cartoon that showed them in a monastery pointing at a passing monk and saying: "He became a Christian and a monk! It was a two-point conversion."

(For the non-Americans, that is a football term. American football, that is, not ... oh well, the joke wasn't really worth it, was it?)

[Primula Baggins]

[Rowanberry]

I was born and raised Lutheran, but left the church when I grew up. Now, I usually define myself as an agnostic, with Taoist and Pagan leanings, but that is far from an exhaustive description.

[axordil]

I put pagan, BTW, but it's more complicated than that (as I join the chorus).

I believe it is possible to find beauty and truth in all religions. Sometimes even in the same spot. But I also have a deeply materialist and monist and nominalist world view.

[Teremia]

The Quakers are by tradition a Christian and Protestant group, but I can't believe the things required usually of a Christian to believe (in the vein of JewelSong, only a few rungs below or to the side of her! ), so I guess you'd call me

a non-Christian Quaker



(I do find that I believe in the Light Within -- I certainly experience that in the people around me.)

[JewelSong]

The Quakers are by tradition a Christian and Protestant group, but I can't believe the things required usually of a Christian to believe (in the vein of JewelSong, only a few rungs below or to the side of her! ), so I guess you'd call me a non-Christian Quaker

Quakers have branched out a bit and you will find many people who profess to be Quakers who do not believe in the usual tenets of Christianity...there are even some agnostic Quakers and some I would describe as Deist.

[Nin]

I am sorry, I thought have stated so often my disbelief in God, that I thought, it was obvious.

Somehow I think I can say, I believe in mankind. I don't think that there is any higher conciousness than our own and that this state gives us an immense responsibility - to each of us. It's too late and I am tired... maybe I'll try to explain one day.

[superwizard]

Well as some of you have already guessed I was the one who put Muslim. My story isn't very complicated (yet!). I've chosen my religion because I honestly believe in it (and also believe that God judges you on your intention-one of the aspects of Islam is that you don't have to be Muslim to go to heaven you just need to honestly believe in God and search for the truth). These past 6 months or so have been very interesting for me at college because I've really changed the way I see my religion and my belief.
In case you're wondering I'm actually Sunni (though I have quite a few Shi'i friends) and would probably be considered a very 'modern' Muslim (not Salman Rushdie more like Hamza Yusuf).

[vison]

Agnostic leaning more and more to the atheist persuasion.

I always say "agnostic" as I dislike the scornful certainty of SOME atheists: the kind of atheist who sneers at believers as being stupid, or mindless, or brainwashed. I'm not that kind of atheist, I'm the kind of atheist who simply cannot believe in god, who has never believed in god, nor has ever seen any reason to believe in god. I am certain there is no god, as certain as I can be about anything.

However, what is true for me is obviously not true for everyone else, so I poll "agnostic" for their sakes, not my own.

Does that make sense?