Are you religious?
 

With all these discussions about religions I thought it might be interesting to see how many people here consider themselves religious and what religions they follow. Undoubtedly there's a lot of christians here and I'm guessing atheists may be strong in numbers. We'll see.

Voting is 100% anonymous.


Wiccanism is included a bit for fun and since it's the biggest of the neopagan religions.
Self-defined is for those who feel they've developed their own spirituality/religion so far that it should not be recognised as any of the other major established religions - although they may have been a starting point.

atheistic agnostic

By the way, if any options are obviously missing, you could post and let me know and I might include it. However, only do so if it's one you wanna vote for but can't find. Also, if you do suggest a new option you'd like to vote for, please wait with voting until after I've included it.

im athiest, although religion does really interest me, my art teacher was jewish and i loved hearing about her religion. not to the point i would follow any though. :)

Christian, but not a Biblical literalist.

Jedi

^

I see self-defined is already gaining a bit which is something I expected. I would be interested if some of those choosing this option would write a bit about what it is they believe - or at least where their beliefs first came from.

theres way more athiests on here than I expected.

Raised Christian. Went to catholic schools. Went to church every Sunday with my mother. Was even an altar boy when i was in primary school (but then again so were 3 others in my class, im starting to wonder if it was actually voluntary!) and i would have claimed this to be my religion until i was 14 years old. I even got confirmed.

I can't really explain it but it was like one day i woke up and realised what a complete load of shit it all really was, told my mother i wasnt going to church anymore and now i believe in nothing.

All of that happend to my mum. My gran was a strict catholic and couldn't really see past her religion. God help you if you said godsake or jesus christ infront of her. You would be a dead man walkin'.

My mothers certainly not like that. She doesnt like swearing but she's not too over the top about it. I could easily use those words infront of her and a few more, but theres a line she doesnt like people to cross. A lot of older folks though class certain words as swearing that we wouldnt think twice about using now.

She definitely wishes i didnt stop going to church with her, though. She probably still wishes that. I just couldn't possibly go to church once i started thinking the way i do now and to be honest why would anyone want me there if im inwardly scoffing at everything im hearing? Trying to explain that as a 14 year old proved more difficult than i thought it would.

Agnostic. Though I think having a "self-defined" religion might be interesting

nawww. my gran, not my mother :p: my mum was the same as you, realised it was a load of shit. only time ive been to chapel is when my gran took me, if she was babysitting me. it was boring, stupid, and made me feel like a total reject when i never went up for the drink & eating that thing. all because i was brought up with no religion.w

Heh i know you meant your gran, i was just saying that even though i said my mam took me to church she was never quite like that.

What i hate even more is people who used to go to church when i did, and probably still do now, asking me WHY i dont go anymore? If that was it, that one simple question then i wouldnt have issue with it. I mean, that would just be curiosity wouldnt it?

But no, first of all try skipping around that subject and avoiding telling them the REAL reason you stopped going. They won't have it, they won't let it go, they will keep pushing you and interrogating you to get you to say it when in actuality they know fine well what the reason is anyway, they just want to act shocked or appaled and try to present themselves as the bigger person because they go to church and therefore arent going to hell.

And if i didnt skip around it and told them outright it would be even worse.

I honestly think all Christians want everyone to go to hell bar themselves. They all seem to talk about so enthusiastically.

Not Atheist, more "don't really care".

Cause Atheists [not agnostic atheists] seem sometimes like some fundamentalists defending their ideology. It's a definite "No God", and because you say otherwise you're wrong.

I more don't care if there is or not a god. Like if God himself told me that the right religion was Christianity I still won't care to go to church.

I'm unsure of what to vote for here. Until recently (the last couple years or so) I've considered myself a Christian. I’ve began to rethink my belief system though, when I realized that my sole basis for following religion was fear. Not the “fear based in love” that the Bible says we should have, but actual fear of incurring wrath, not only from God (whose existence is also in question), but also from my family and friends. Basically, it’s fear based on blind submission. I came to the realization that I’m tired of being afraid all the time, of always feeling like I’m doing something wrong even when I’m doing nothing wrong. Sooo…I guess what I’m saying is that I’m unsure if God exists. And if he does, I’m unsure about how much I care. So what does that fall under?

What if God told you you'd go to hell for not actively worshipping him/her? ;)

I didn't state where my place is in the statistics, but of course I'm an atheist. I never had a religious upbringing and having to deal with it (religious teachers, organisations, going to church) has mostly been a pain in the arse which is sad because while I'm not religious I often find religion very interesting.

edit :

For you who are generally uncertain, I'll add a "don't know" option :p:

He'll just have to suck it. No worships for me thanks.

***Heaven is overrated :ar_15s:

I lived with my grandparents for the better part of my first six years and my grandma's a hardcore Mormon, so that was my first experience with religion. I would go to church with her on sundays but being so young it was more of a social event than anything (plus I got really good at sneaking extra pieces of bread from the "body of christ" dish). I was never allowed to ask questions I had about the bible, God, or anything to do with questioning the church, and even then I thought this was strange.

But to get away from ranting more about Mormonism, as I grew older I still considered myself a Christian because, like nonsubmissivewife said, my sole basis for following religion was fear. Not until the last couple of years did I allow myself to really question my beliefs. One day I just kind of realized that I don't believe in god. I don't believe in heaven and hell, and I definitely don't believe that "truth is determined by our feelings" (that's a fundamental Mormon belief for those of you who didn't know).

To summarize, I am an atheist.

I practice a little Bokononism on the side.

:)

that reminds me, I believe I owe you something.

Oh yeah. No rush though, I'll be here all day. :rolleyes:

The first 7 years of my life I didn't even know there is something called "God", cause I was in a laic school [and I'm not aware of my parent's religious activities in this time].
Then I got transfered to a a Catholic school, and because I wasn't aware of God it made me feel like a sinner. So I made everything a good Christian would do, I even made a praying corner in my room with candles and everything. And it did become this kind of God that won't let me be afraid.

But with time, and being in the middle of the Christian hypocrisy I just noticed how meaningless it is. Maybe if I transfered back from the catholic school I would still be a believer, but being in the middle of it just made me sick.

I chose self-defined.

I am a very spiritual person and very knowledgeable in the practices scriptures and beliefs of most of the worlds major religions, both eastern western, as well as New Thought based. I practice my own faith very actively, which includes prayer, meditation, and other practices that I can only collectively describe as shamanic in nature.

The foundation of my belief system is Judeo-christian simply because I believe that the interpersonal dynamic between the self and what is perceived as a guiding higher power, aka a spiritual father, is very conducive to spiritual and personal growth and insight. I did try living a fairly orthodox christian lifestyle for a while, which even included doing missionary work, but I came to find out that Christianity was a religion that I couldn't practice with the degree of intellectual honesty necessary for me to thrive and grow in such a religion.

I also disagree with most of the main tenets of Christianity as they are defined by the Nicene Creed, so I can't rightfully call myself a Christian, or at least i can't in the eyes of mainstream Christianity. Despite this I feel like I have a genuine understanding and relationship with Jesus as being both a prophet and a shaman, and I do try to live my life by his example and teachings.

I think the primary problem that we run into, or at least I do, from both the theistic and atheistic side of the debate is the perception of god being an entity, or an object that exists in time and space outside of our selves. I believe god is essentially the greater whole to which we and everything in existence are a part of. I also believe that god primarily exists as an aspect of our consciousness, our super-consciousness, and it's the practice of prayer, meditation, or whatever ritual or aesthetic lifestyle one may happen to be engaged in that allows us to tap into that part of our consciousness and develop as human beings.

I don't particularly entertain the big questions such as "Who created the universe?", "why is there evil/suffering?" "Is there a heaven/hell?", because I don't believe there will ever be adequate answers to these questions and I also believe these questions depict god as being an autonomous and independently judgmental entity. "He" is, in fact, only a greater extension of our selves and the universe at large, not that there's any difference between the two.

Born and raised into Catholicism, went to church regularly on my mother's insistence 'till I was about 21-22. Seeing as how I realized I was gay when I was about 17 this means I went through some 5 years of intense personal struggle: God vs. sexuality. I did what every good little Christian boy should and tried ever so hard to suppress my nature, failed miserably and wasted a whole lotta time. Then finally came to the conclusion that God couldn't possibly hate me just because I'm gay since I considered myself a pretty decent person "otherwise" and if he really did, this is not a God I want to worship. This meant I could no longer call myself a Catholic because I no longer followed one of its tenets. So I stopped going to church and wouldn't you believe it, started feeling increasingly better about myself with each passing day. Then I started thinking how if the Bible is wrong on this one thing, who says it isn't wrong about a whole lotta things...and then it just all started to sound pretty fishy to me so I stopped paying it much attention.

I still believe in a (benevolent) God or what have you and an afterlife, just not sure that the only way to get there is by believing in JC or that the Bible has very much to do with his Word. I believe I'm here to learn something and I'm trying to let the "invisible force" lead me to that knowledge. And I strongly believe everything happens for a reason. I guess I'd fall under agnostic?..:\

I chose 'self-defined' because I think I'm spiritual on some (small) level and I have certain beliefs about the world and life which don't really fit into any religion. But then again I'm not sure if I would fall under self-defined or agnostic or something else.

As a child I was raised as a Catholic but never really believed any of it, and my parents aren't overly religious anyway. I don't really know what I think about the meaning of life and religion and all that - I think that there is some kind-of God or superior force out there which explains why we're all here and what we're doing, and believe that there is some kind-of afterlife. But that's pretty much as far as my thoughts go and according to me we will never truly know and it will always be a mystery.

Somewhere between agnostic and deist.

As in I believe that there's some kind of spirtual force out there, but I refuse to associate it with what other religions believe in, and I acknowledge that I don't truly know the answer to anything.

I try to be as respectful of religion as I can, because I can understand the idea. But it's really hard, so many fundies anger me beyond belief and can really bring out the worst in me.

I'm an atheist, and tbh, alot of atheists piss me off, not all, just the ones who go out of their way to prove to religious people they're wrong and why they're wrong. In my book, that makes them just as bad as pushy religious people, except the religious ones don't have the same annoying smug attitude about them.

I think some people need to believe in something higher than what we are, and I think we should let them without giving them any **** about it.

I pretty much agree with a lot of what was said in the last two posts.

If someone pushes my buttons about religion i will try my best to unleash the fury and rip them a new one but i wouldnt do it without provocation. I believe in nothing but if others do, if others have a faith then who am i to argue with this? To be honest why should i care in the slightest?

In a way i almost envy those who really have faith and the ability to believe in something so much. Although that may just be because i can't get my head around religion at all and therefore know for a fact i could never do that.

I'm not sure I ever met an atheist that fits that description, a smug one that went out of his or her way to prove to religious people they're wrong. You meet a lot of these?

All the atheists I meet are like this. They always seem arrogant, as if they alone have discovered the secret of the "imaginary god".

I've met a few yeah, and the internet is rife with them.

I have to agree with these guys, I find elitist atheists with the same frequency I find your stereotypical pushy Christian. It's one of the reasons I find it hard to label myself an atheist, for fear of being associated with those pretentious assholes

I'm Christian by personal choice.

I am a strong atheist. I guess one could call me an anti-theist in that I am against any for of theism. I don't believe theism to be the root of the problem though. Just the fact that theism is irrational. Any belief in a higher deity is idol worship. You should be worshiping the human spirit if anything. Worship yourself, not as if you were a deity, but as if you were a hero. I am one of the atheists who goes out of his way to prove religious people wrong. That is because I would do the same with any Nazi. Nazism is a destructive philosophy just as I believe theism is. Neither are roots of the problem, but they are part of it. I dislike Agnosticism because it is fence sitting. They say that we should just consider the God question beyond positive or negative because we have no proof of existence or nonexistence. However, there is no ultimately positive aspect of spirituality just as there is no ultimately positive aspect of taking 'shrooms or doing acid to "enlighten" yourself.

Two plus two equals four. If someone goes on to say that it equals five he better have a damn good reason for believing what he does. Otherwise, I will do the honor of tearing his argument to pieces so that he won't be deceiving people. I would hope everyone else would do the same.

This is about to get good.

This is about to get pointless.:rolleyes:

Well, this thread wasn't really made for arguing viewpoints but rather sharing them if it's at all possible to keep the two separated. I want people to share their beliefs and answer the poll so that we can learn something about the community that discusses these topics. Although people may disagree strongly with many of the things brought up here, I would personally like it if some of these potential whos-right-arguments and discussions were kept to the current events forum.

I can see how it may be hard to keep it in when Inuzuka paralells theism to nazism, though .. but discussing which belief here is "right" is not the topic.