Religious survey

I am in all terms and conditions a Elective Pagan.

But I have made my own religion, Haloism (not based off of the angels headware, but the game) it allows me to make my god something that makes more since then normal religions.

My wife is also Pagan and follows more of the traditional wiccan followings though.

Now truely do I think all religions are horrible, no. I don't believe 1 religion is for everyone, but I do think that we need something to believe that is bigger than us. I respect all religions as long as they respect mine.
 
I was loosely raised Methodist and stopped going to church around 10 years old. Beyond that, what Rarechild said pretty much sums up my present views on spirituality. I feel most connected to the divine in those Zen moments where there is nothing but the Now. I tend to view most organized religion as a centuries old control technique to keep the masses from eating each other and continue to pay their taxes... and produce subsequent generations of faith based zombies. That said, I have seen members of many faiths commit genuine acts of kindness in the name of their God, which is pretty cool. So, to sum up... Organized religion (on the whole) = bad. Spirituality and a connection to a higher power (that we will obviously never fully understand) = the natural way of things.
 
My religion is kindness. Nobody can put it in a bottle and sell it. No one owns it. It's free for the taking and giving.

And I'm very unorthodox about it.

Heterodox, too.
 
Someone recently said to me that he thought all poly people were pagans or athiests.
. . .
What about you?

I am a Christian. Not a Baptist, Methodist, Calvinist, Catholicist, or any other -ist. I am a follower of Christ.

Christ said that the whole of the law is that we should love God and love one another. I'm good with that.
 
Me:
I was raised as a Christian, but after some unusual spiritual experiences, I consider myself spiritually "open-minded". Have an affinity for philosophy, shamanism, New Age, Buddhism, Jainism, Theosophy and the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM).

Her:
She was raised Nazarene, but explored other forms of Christianity in college. Feels an affinity for Wicca, Druidism, Jainism and many New Age ideas.


:cool:
 
My mom is an agnostic atheist, and my dad is an atheist, to the dismay of his parents (his dad was a minister). They raised my brother and I to love people for the diversity of their beliefs, and encouraged us to explore faith. We went to several different churches, trying each flavor, and maybe we had a bad sample, but each one told us that our parents were going to burn in hell for not believing in whatever brand of god they were selling. I actually had a few pastors ask where my parents were, and tell me that it was my responsibility to save their souls. Which is a pretty hefty statement for a 7 year old to take in, and made me run away from faith, and I haven't been comfortable in a church since then.


These days I would define myself as a Humanist. I believe in love and in people. It probably doesn't help that I'm a biologist. :)
 
but each one told us that our parents were going to burn in hell for not believing in whatever brand of god they were selling.
My grandmother really wanted me to convert back to Christianity before she died. (Her health was declining pretty fast towards the end.) She would tell me that my lack of belief would have me spending eternity in hell. I know she truly believed all of this and was concerned, but it bugged me that she believed that her god was going to torture me for all of eternity because I never found proof of God. I told her that even if such a God existed, I would be hesitant to worhsip something who would do such a thing. (Removing me from existance would be nicer than torture.)

I finally asked her if she was going to be happy in heaven no matter what? She said she would be perfectly happy. "Would you be happy in heaven if you knew I was being tortured in hell?" She thought ahd said she would be. So I asked why is she so concerned since it won't affect her happiness in the afterlife? Her answer was that i should talk to a priest instead of her.


These days I would define myself as a Humanist. I believe in love and in people. It probably doesn't help that I'm a biologist. :)
Yeah, I am a scientist and work with other scientists, so it suprised me how many coworkers do not believe in God. So I found a surver that reported that 72% of scienstists do not believe in God while 21% are agnostic and 7% believe in God. Biologists believe in God around 5% while mathematicians believe in God around 16%. My guess is that biologists deal with evolution, which seems to be a hot issue for science/religion.
 
I was raised as an Orthodox Jew, after immense research at the age of 12 i became an atheist. It took many years tot ell my family, and while my father is completely accepting (my step-mom is also an atheist), my mother and sister have a hard time handling it. It seems odd to me since they aren't that religious anymore. They joke about it, but i think that's there way of showing disapproval.
 
My grandmother really wanted me to convert back to Christianity before she died. (Her health was declining pretty fast towards the end.) She would tell me that my lack of belief would have me spending eternity in hell. I know she truly believed all of this and was concerned, but it bugged me that she believed that her god was going to torture me for all of eternity because I never found proof of God. I told her that even if such a God existed, I would be hesitant to worhsip something who would do such a thing. (Removing me from existance would be nicer than torture.)

I had a similar experience with my very Catholic grandmother who was always upset that my parents weren't raising us in the church. She would always try to reeducate me to save me whenever I spent time with her. But she died when I was 9 so I never really hit the point where I could have a serious religious dialogue with her.

I definitely identify as a Humanist as well. I never would have ended up going to church were it not for a chance meeting with Kurt Vonnegut whereby he convinced me to give it a try. He gave a speech at my university and in the speech he mentioned a guy who had been in prison for 20 years and was about to be released. He wrote Vonnegut a letter asking him about the best way to reintegrate into society. Vonnegut told him to join a church. Churches function as a tribe or extended family.

By that time I was a working musician who had played many church services of various denominations (including regularly cantoring Catholic masses) and always found that these services would piss me off in one way or another. At the reception afterwards, I got to briefly chat with Vonnegut and mentioned that while I like the idea of a church community, I can't reconcile my beliefs with them. He said go to a Unitarian church. I'd probably like it.

A few years later I found myself having moved to a new part of the country with a new job and no friends so that's what I did. I love that in a UU church you'll find a service about Islamic mysticism one week, a service about Advent and the idea of ritualistic waiting in the darkest months another week, and a service about Richard Dawkins and the rationalists yet another week.

One thing I find fascinating is that the word religion has sort of become synonymous with belief in god. That's pretty reasonable considering almost all religions do believe in a god or gods. But the fascinating thing about the word "religion" is that it's root is the Latin word "ligare" which means to bind. It's the same root for the word "ligament" which is a thing that binds bones together.

So all religion really means is "that which binds together". I kind of like that.
 
I had an experience at a young age where my caretaker took me to her Baptist church on the end of our block to get saved. And I ran screaming from that whole deal. They also put the "fear of God" into me about how my mom was going to hell for being an atheist.

But after a few brief moments of doubt (erm, doubting my doubts I suppose) I returned to pretty stable diet of rational skepticism(atheism).

I spent most of my life with a gut feeling that something was wrong, in that, people who liked to praise Jesus had a place to go and share fellowship and network and build strong communities on a weekly basis and atheists did not. That seemed like we were willfully accepting a power imbalance and I would occasionally joke about starting an atheist church when I grew up (and sometimes embellish the joke by doing my charismatic leader routine where I would charismatically preach the gospel of not listening to anything that I have to say)

To my absolute and utter astonishment, a woman that I fell very deeply in love with, introduced me to the UU church, where many atheists gather alongside many people of other faiths. Coincidentally she introduced me to polyamory at about the same time, and all of the first polyamorists that I met were UUs so the two became oddly coupled in my mind for a while.

So anyway, that's the story of how I became a church going atheist. My own church here at home totally rocks.
 
She would tell me that my lack of belief would have me spending eternity in hell. I know she truly believed all of this and was concerned, but it bugged me that she believed that her god was going to torture me for all of eternity because I never found proof of God.

I'm sorry that you had to put up with that, too. I'm sure lots of people who question the existence of a god have had to. The thing is, their god wouldn't torture you because you never found the proof; it's the blind faith that they want. Absolute faith without proof in the strictest sense. Which seems a tad absurd to me, because what happens to those in parts of the world that never were presented with the idea of a god? Do they go to hell for not having the fortune of hearing about this god that many choose to believe in? That doesn't seem like the will of a just and loving god to me.


My guess is that biologists deal with evolution, which seems to be a hot issue for science/religion.

I've spent a while studying evolution, and I don't think religion and evolutionary biology are mutually exclusive. If there is a being capable enough to create our complex systems and everything we see in our world, I imagine s/he would make us so that we could adapt to changes in our environment so that we would survive. I think this is probably the view a lot of evolutionary scientists-- those that choose to believe in a god-- take.

This is all just my opinion...
 
Originally Posted by Quath
My guess is that biologists deal with evolution, which seems to be a hot issue for science/religion.

I am not a supporter of the fact that just one being said hey i'll make this and this and wham-bam thank-you-mam it happened. I'm all for evolution. I just think there is room for both and you can say that some force be it a god, a goddess, hell even an alien petri dish, whatever, but say that they started the evolution. Reason why is that it just seems to me that yes after countless generations we eventually adapt to our surroundings, but it must take a lot of energy to do so, enough that its just out of human reach [for right now].
 
Reason why is that it just seems to me that yes after countless generations we eventually adapt to our surroundings, but it must take a lot of energy to do so, enough that its just out of human reach [for right now].

Actually there can be evolution after just one generation if the population isn't in equilibrium. Not major changes like gaining wings or losing limbs, but minor changes can occur that can accumulate to eventually lead to these landmark changes-- even in humans. A good example of evolution in humans that's happening now is antibiotic resistance.

I typed more of an explanation, but figured this isn't the thread for it and that most people probably aren't as interested in the sciencey jargon as I am, and restrained myself. :)
 
Well yeah the small stuff is just that small stuff.

But I mean like apes turning into humans...or fish into land creatures. It was a series of small events, but even those small events were big leaps for creatures like that.
 
I am not a supporter of the fact that just one being said hey i'll make this and this and wham-bam thank-you-mam it happened. I'm all for evolution. I just think there is room for both and you can say that some force be it a god, a goddess, hell even an alien petri dish, whatever, but say that they started the evolution. Reason why is that it just seems to me that yes after countless generations we eventually adapt to our surroundings, but it must take a lot of energy to do so, enough that its just out of human reach [for right now].
Yeah, the compromise position is theistic evolution. That can either mean that God is more of a deist deity who set it all up and let the chips fall where they may (and he knew where it would lead). Or it can mean that God nudged evolution for humans along. The second interpretation suffers from lack of intelligence in human design. Like the eyes in humans are not "designed" as well as in a squid (which would imply that God worked on the squid more than humans). We should also see places where humans seem to advance more than probability would allow.

When I was Christian, I accepted evolution. But it was not easy because where does the garden of Eden fit in? Did God just pick two humans out of the mix and put them in a zoo? Some of this made me start to rethink my theology.
 
Since this is the spiritual thread...

I've always wondered why someone feels the need to 'prove' what they thing spiritually. No, I take that back. I once used to be a "rabid atheist". Once I realized that it is I was doing, I started to resent it.

Why does someone have to knock someone who believes differently, just because it's different? As long as someone isn't forcing their beliefs (i.e. Christians enacting into law "moral" sexual practices) unto me, I have no problems with them. Why rag on someone for finding their peace or happiness?
 
R's parents are very zealous Christians who try to convert everyone to their denomination. When they started in on our kids, we drew the line.

The end result is: They're only allowed to see their grandkids as long as they don't mention religion to them in any way.

:mad:
 
Why does someone have to knock someone who believes differently, just because it's different? As long as someone isn't forcing their beliefs (i.e. Christians enacting into law "moral" sexual practices) unto me, I have no problems with them. Why rag on someone for finding their peace or happiness?
I came from the other direction. I use to be an "apathetic atheist." As long as people did not try to push their beliefs on me, why should I care?

What changed me was my grandmother sending me all sorts of Christian apologetic material. I started to read more about religion and it greatly bothered me.

It is easy to see why I should speak out against the extreme issues. Some of these are laws and treatment of gays. Pedophilia in the Catholic Church. War in the name of religion (not so much of a cause but a rallying point). Horrors of history from the Crusades to killing people for not being the right religion to ritual sacrifice to killing children for being witches.

But then I saw some lesser issues. I saw that Christianity could support slavery (as well as support freeing of slaves). So any Christian can take any side in an issue, quote the Bible, and say they are morally good for doing so. I saw that someone could do something bad, and yet feel good about themselves because they could claim they are doing the Lord's work.

But the lines between the extreme harm and the minor harm seems to get blurred. Anti-gay laws rely heavily upon moderate, mainstream Christianity. This was the same pattern for people being against interracial marriage. Science is rejected and bad mouthed due to mainstream religious beliefs.

In the end, extreme religious fanatics are empowered by the moderates. They can point to them and saw, "See! We all believe in the same God. I just follow the holy book to the letter while they pick and choose willy-nilly what they want to believe." Any critique of the far extreme of a religion has to cover a critique of all of the whole belief system.

If we lived in a world where the extreme fanatics did not exist and everyone was a moderate who was ok with a secular government, I would go back to being an apathetic atheist again. Until then, I feel I must speak out while I still see injustice done in the name of religion.
 
I guess I'm a sincerely identifying 'nothing'. Not becuase I have ambiguous beliefs (such as a true agnostic) but becuase I have found that every single group I got involved with has the same desire to hold on to power and bash other groups.

Christians hate athiests, who think pagans are naive, who think buddahists worship nothing (a remarkably legitimate accusation, and yet so ignorant to make.), etc, etc, etc.

Frankly, I got sick of the BS.

I believe in mother and father god. I believe we all make our own universe and realities. I believe we are all powerful creatures. I believe that the only sin is when you impose your will on someone else's/ knowingly violate someone else's will or property. I believe children are sacred, as they are the closest thing to God/Goddess we can see with our human eyes.

For these reasons, my politics are all over the map. For example; I'm avidly pro-equality, but very anti-femanist as all as male supremist. I'm against anything that enslaves any group of people, but becuase I believe we are all powerful, I'm against any thing that grants special help or favors to one particular group. (anti-welfare.) I'm pro-capital punishment and anti-taxes becuase I believe my money is MINE as long as I did the work for it. I'm pro-life becuase I don't think one person should be able to choose to 'terminate' another because that person is inconviniant. (Admittedly though, abortion is a very compliated subject with many exceptions to the rule for me.)

So... yeah... that's my religious map... lol
 
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